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POEMS AND BIOGRAPHY 

OF 

MARY ELEANOR ANDERSON 




MARY ELEANOR ANDERSON 



Poems and Biography 



^^ y 



Mary Eleanor Anderson 



v^ 



BY / 

HER HUSBAND, GALUSHA ANDERSON 

1 

Professor Emeritus, University of Chicago 

Author of "The Story of a Border City during the Civil 

War," "Hitherto Untold," "When Neighbors Were 

Neighbors," and "Science and Prayer" 



" One soul in tv^^o bodies." 

Gregory Nazianzen 



BOSTON 
THE COLONIAL PRESS 

PUBLISHERS 



3'\ 



f1 






Copyright, igi7 
By Galusha Anderson 



DEC 18 1317 



THE COLONIAL PRESS 
C. H. SIMONDS CO., BOSTON, U. S. A. 



©C!,A475)5 7b /^ ' 



\ 



To Her Children and Grandchildren, 

and to all with whom she worked in promoting 

Missions, both Home and Foreign, this 

volume is affectionately 

dedicated. 



FOREWORD 

To edit the poems and write the biography of one's 
wife, is a work both delicate and difficult. In one 
respect I was manifestly disqualified for it, since I 
was a prejudiced witness. For more than fifty-five 
years we had walked together in the bonds of holy 
wedlock. She was the happy mother of my children. 
I fairly worshipped the ground on which she stood, 
and her absence from the earth had increased, rather 
than abated, the ardor of my affection. But while I 
could not but be prejudiced in her favor, on the other 
hand no one, in all the world, understood her so well 
as I. Divesting myself so far as I could of undue 
bias, I proceeded to edit some of her poems and to 
write the story of her life. In telling that story 
I have often quoted from an autobiographical sketch, 
which I found among her papers, written, not for the 
public, but simply for the eye of her husband and 
children. 

I found it no easy task to select from her numerous 
poetical compositions her best work, and in some cases 
I may have rejected what I should have chosen and 
edited what might better have been omitted; but I 
liave done my best. 

As to her biography, I have striven to write it 

vii 



impartially and justly, neither consciously covering up 
defects nor unduly exalting virtues. If I have come 
short in any respect, I am sure it is in setting forth 
her real worth. In order to avoid awkward circum- 
locutions I have ordinarily designated her in the 
biography, by her given name, " Mary." I trust that 
this will not be offensive even to those of fastidious 
taste. 

It gives me pleasure to acknowledge the courtesy 
of the editors of The Atlantic Monthly in permitting 
me to republish from its pages Mrs. Anderson's poem, 
" Poor Marie." I also heartily thank her old school- 
mate, Mrs. Sophie Burns of Bath, New York, and also 
those with whom she was associated in Mission work, 
for their valuable suggestions. 

Galusha Anderson. 

Newton Centre, Massachusetts, 
October i6, 1917. 



vm 



CONTENTS 

THE POEMS 

PAGE 

Departed Days i 

Poor Marie ........ i 

Grandmother's Heart .5 

Soul Longings 6 

The Market-Place 7 

Night Musings 8 

Bluebirds ......... id 

Psyche's Wings 11 

New Year's, 1886 12 

The Woodland Rose ....... 14 

Mabel 15 

A Sunbeam ........ 18 

Daisies and Clover-Tops 19 

Thistle-Sweetness . . . . . . .21 

Little Belgian Children 23 

Taking in the Flowers 24 

How Pearls Grow 2(i 

Crossing the Styx 27 

St. Cecilia 28 

Deborah 29 

Winter-Rains 31 

The Christmas-Sheaf • 32 

Winter 34 

Water-Lilies 36 

Leaf-Buds 37 

Twilight 39 

The Old Pine-Tree by the Gate .... 40 

The Tide 42 

ix 



PAGE 

With the Tide 43 

Christmas^ 1915 45 

On Christmas Day, 191 5 47 

What They Say 48 

Thought Questionings ...... 49 

The Brook 50 

Morning in a Great City -51 

Home at Night ....... 52 

The Springtime Comes Again ..... 53 

A Baby Song 55 

Everlasting Days ....... 55 

Flowers Laid on the Breast of Her Brother 

Freddie's Body 56 

Death Passed My Way 57 

Under the Cypress Vine 58 

The Empty House ....... 59 

The Skylark^'s Nest 61 

Star and Lily ........ 62 

Grass 63 

God's Peace ........ 65 

The Empty Nest ....... 65 

The Open Grave ....... 67 

A Twilight Song ....... 68 

Voices . . . 69 

The Soldier Boy ....... 74 

Our Country ........ 75 

The Fading Line of Blue ^^ 

ECHOES FROM THE CIVIL WAR AND SOME 
OCCASIONAL POEMS 

Blood-Root . 81 

After the Battle 81 

Peace 84 

The Autumn of Peace 86 

A Dirge of Slavery 88 

Dedication of Colby Hall ..... 90 

X 



Arbor Day 


. 91 


Aunt Lizzie Aiken's Seventieth Birthday . 


• 92 


POEMS DISTINCTIVELY CHRISTIAN 






PAGE 


What Shall I Render unto the Lord? . 


. 99 


Only One Talent 


. 100 


Trust in the Unseen 


. 102 


Good-Night 


. 103 


Sorrow 


. 104 


Self-Surrender 


. 105 


I Am Thine 


. 106 


" Apprehended of Christ Jesus "... 


. 108 


" The Living Temple " 


. 108 


Golden Bov^ls 


. 109 


God Our Strength 


. no 


Illuminate the Cross 


. Ill 


LovEST to the End 


. 113 


" He Shall Carry the Lambs in His Bosom " 


115 


The Heavenly Gates . . . . . 


. 116 


Habakkuk, Chapter III 


. 118 


Christ's Sacrifice 


119 


Easter Missionary Hymn .... 


120 


Shall I Be There? 


121 


The Smitten Rock 


122 


God's Child Through Redemption . 


124 


The Happy Day 


124 


Giving My Heart 


125 


God-Attuned 


126 


The Father's Welcome 


127 


Deliverance from Sin 


128 


The Sabbath 


129 


Jesus Adored 


130 


For Baptism 


132 


Our Saviour-King 


133 


Day of Light and Gladness . . . . , 


134 



XI 



Light-house Lamps . 

The Gospel Triumphant 

God's Glorious Day . 

A Friend . 

The Apple Blossom . 

" Salve Caput Cruentatum " 



PAGE 

136 
137 
138 

139 
140 



THE BIOGRAPHY 

I Ancestry and Early Travels 

n Adverse Influences 

III Multiplicity of Homes . 

IV Schools Attended .... 
V Graduation, Chosen Pursuit, Baptism 

Marriage ..... 
VI Meeting New Responsibilities 
VII Change of Place and Occupation . 
VIII Life in Brooklyn, Chicago, Salem 
Granville . . . . • . 
IX Retirement in New England 
X Mary's Literary Work . 
XI Her Traits of Mind and Heart 
Appendix 



AND 



AND 



145 
154 
164 

174 

190 
197 
205 

212 
227 
230 

237 
250 



Xll 



THE POEMS 



THE POEMS 



DEPARTED DAYS 

Like the faint perfume of a drawer, 
Where rose-leaves were, but are no more, 
The sweetness of departed days 
Lingers through all our lives and ways. 

As when across a maze of flowers. 

The south-wind wafts the early showers, 

Not several sweetnesses he brings, 

But mingled odors load his wings. 

So from the past there gently steals 
A subtle joy, he knows who feels; 
Not many memories fill his soul; 
But the blest influence of the whole. 



POOR MARIE 

Down the long hill came poor Marie, 

Her basket on her head. 
The tears rolled slowly down her cheeks 

And flecked her kerchief red, 



And every tear bewept the day 

When Wilhelm marched to France away. 

The gurgle of the mountain spring, 

As from the wooden spout 
The water, Hke a joyous child, 

Leaped laughing, prattling out. 
Cried Wilhelm! Wilhelm! in her ears, 
Till she could hardly see for tears. 

She wiped them with her apron blue. 
And sought her heart to cheer. 

^' Why should I weep since he is true, 
Perchance may soon be here?" 

But the light harebell shook its head 

At every cheerful word she said. 

In clefts and crannies of the rock 
Which walls the narrow street. 

The bluebell and the heatherbell 
Cling fast with slender feet, 

And, with slight vines and tufts of grass, 

Beckon and nod to all who pass. 

^^ O wayside darlings!'' cried Marie, 
^' He praised my eyes of blue. 

When will he come to say again 
That they shine bright as you? 

Here, let me kiss you where you stand, 

I will not touch you with my hand." 



The light wind sent a shiver down 
Through all the garlands green, 

And shook the dewdrops from the cups 
Of flowers that grew between. 

On Marie's face the drops were shed 

Like mourners' tears upon the dead. 

Down to the market-place she came 

With weary step and slow, 
The heaps of fruit and stands of flowers 

Were blooming in a row. 
And everywhere hung overhead 
Wreaths of immortelles for the dead. 

The people in an anxious crowd 
Filled all the street and square; 

You might have heard a passing cloud, 
It was so silent there. 

As from the church-steps some one read 

The list of wounded men and dead. 

For in the glorious battle fought 

And won but yesterday 
Were half the men of that small town. 

The brown-haired and the gray. 
Through the rapt throng poor Marie pressed, 
To quake and listen with the rest. 

She heard a whisper, as she passed. 
That burned her like a flame. 



^' Poor, poor Marie!'' it said; she turned 

To see from whence it came. 
Hope kissed her pallid lips, and fled. 
" Tell me," she cried, " oh, is he dead?" 

They bear a woman down the street: 
^^ His mother, give her air!" 

She knows the kerchief and the gown. 
She knows the ashen hair. 

'^ Mother, let me die, too," she moans, 

And senseless falls upon the stones. 

Up the long hill climbed poor Marie, 

Her stony eyes were dry. 
The heart beneath the kerchief gay 

Breaking, could only sigh. 
One thought spun ceaseless in her head, 
^^ Why do I live when he is dead?" 

Fainting she leaned against the rock. 
The bluebells kissed her face. 

" He called my eyes as blue as these 
Here in this very place; — 

Here in this very place," she said, 

" And still they bloom while he is dead." 



First published in The Atlantic Monthly. The scene of 
this poem was Heidelberg, Germany. It was written soon 
after the Franco-German war of 1870. 



GRANDMOTHER'S HEART 

Grandmother stands in the sunny door, 
Where blossom the roses, red and white, 
She has gathered them seventy times before, 
But she greets them ever with fresh dehght. 

Grandmother's eyes may be slow to see. 
Grandmother's hair may have lost its curl, 
But as she stands by the old rose-tree. 
Grandmother's heart is the heart of a girl. 

Gently she breaks from their bending stem 
The fairest buds of the perfumed wreath. 
Tucks them under her neckerchief hem. 
With a smile that has not a shade of grief. 

Grandmother's ears hear the bobolink yet, 
Oriole sings her his song so gay. 
And well she knows that the thrush has set 
His nest in the elm-tree across the way. 

Grandmother knows where the wood flowers bloom, 
Where violets courtesy in meadows cold, 
Where blue lakes gleam through the forest gloom, 
Then why should grandmother's heart be old? 

Grandmother hums with her faltering voice, 
An old, old song in the sunny day, 



It bids her heart leap up and rejoice, 
And she smiles with the joy of yesterday. 

They are not old that around her rise, 
The little brother of long ago, 
The fair young mother in Paradise, 
And the children who never older grow.- 

Soon when the tale of her years is told, 
The tall, fair angels of endless youth. 
Shall gently loosen the garment old. 
And carry to heaven her heart of truth. 

There He shall meet her with greeting mild, 
Who so long led her by staff and rod, 
" Thou hadst the heart of a child. 
Come in; inherit the kingdom of God.'' 

SOUL LONGINGS 

Is there nothing here but hope? 

No fruition? 
Is but in the night to grope 

Our condition? 
And for greater light and scope 

Our petition? 

Can no real good be found 

In all pleasure? 
Can we own of house or ground 

But our measure? 



Are the toys, that us surround, 
All our treasure? 

Are we made to think and long, 

And expire? 
With our hearts burnt out by wrong 

As a fire? 
Is life but a plaintive song 

For the lyre? 

In my soul there is a cry. 

Ceases never. 
For that life more blest and high. 

The forever. 
Where attainment shall be nigh 

The endeavor. 

THE MARKET-PLACE 

In the heart of the quaint old town. 

Looks the church on the market down, 

Which glows with fruit and blossoms with flowers, 

Bright setting for the gray old towers. 

Sounds of traffic and trade are loud, 
Shrill the voice of the busy crowd. 
From the belfry the swallows call. 
The church stands silent 'mid them all. 

Grief and happiness come and go. 
Life and death in the square below. 



The chimes above reflect them well 
In marriage peal and funeral knell. 

Within its walls the casual tread 
Wakens the echoes overhead, 
Which, in a stillness so profound, 
Rise, startled, at the slightest sound. 

And still from time to time there come 
Faint murmurs of the outside hum. 
Which, like the sunshine's dusty beams, 
Are dim as memories of dreams. 

In sunny light and melody 
The belfry soars into the sky, 
'Mid chime of bell and song of bird 
The worldly din is all unheard. 

Could I but bear so still a heart 

In busy crowd and noisy mart. 

So crowned with song, so hushed with prayer, 

I should be happy everywhere. 



NIGHT MUSINGS 

Sweet fields and hills, all wrapt in snow, 
Cold, bitter cold, each hour ye grow, 
Cold as if roses ne'er did blow. 

8 



The moon, ere yet the day is done, 
To tell her ros'ry has begun. 
Slipping the star-beads one by one. 

Still as some white-stoled saint she goes 
At midnight penance through the snows, 
And, going, bright and brighter grows. 

No passing cloud is in the air. 
But heaven, all unveiled and fair. 
Flashes new beauties everywhere. 

Past snowy plains, as moonbeams white, 
Past all the shadowy forms of light. 
In star-beams sketched upon the night, 

I gaze into a distance far. 

Beyond where shines the outside star. 

That gems with light night's azure car. 

I see a vault with vastness black. 
From which no sunbeam shineth back. 
Nor e'en the wandering comet's track. 

So, far below all joy and woe. 

Past thoughts which come, and words which go, 

A farther deep we feel and know. 

Hidden in darkness so profound 

That man, though searching, ne'er has found 

The line which his own soul doth bound. 



What shall this outside region be, 
Stretching beyond the world we see, 
But thy broad land, eternity? 



BLUEBIRDS 

In the bare trees 

Bluebirds are swinging. 
To the chill breeze 

Cheerily singing; 
Prophets of Spring 

Ere springtime is here, 
Where did they learn 

The time of the year? 

Blossoms and buds 

Quietly sleeping, 
Only the grass 

Greening and creeping, 
Hardly a brook 

Escaped from its chain. 
But the cold night 

Recaptures again. 

Deep in the ground 
Snow-drops are lying. 

Not one the storm 
Dreams of defying. 

Black are the clouds, 

10 



Yet bluebirds are here, 
Filling the woods 
With songs loud and clear. 

Ye, whose hearts wake. 

Though the earth slumbers; 
Ye^ who have learned 

Heavenly numbers; 
Dark are the days. 

Yet joyfully sing. 
Loudly and clear, 

The Prophets of Spring. 



PSYCHE'S WINGS 

Flit, birds of eventide. 

On the swift wing, 
Summer is in her pride. 

Earth blossoming; 
Level the shadows fly. 

Naught breathes but rest. 
Fly, happy warblers, fly 

Home to the nest. 

Stretch thy strong pinions now, 
Soul, toward the skies, 

What hushes all below 
Bids thee arise, 

II 



Far past the setting sun 

Press thou thy way; 
His daily race is run, 

Naught bounds thy day. 

Lift up thy snow-white wings, 

Washed in His blood, 
Who bore for thee death's stings, 

Scorn and the rood; 
Fly, soul, to meet Him, where 

Sin cannot come, 
Happy and quiet there. 

Safe in thy home. 

Now at this sunset hour. 

Labor all done. 
Use thou the mighty power, 

Given thee alone; 
Birds to their branches fly, 

Swift comes the night. 
To heavenward-lifted eye 

Darkness is light. 



NEW YEAR'S, 1886 

Here we change horses! From my side 
Climbs down my faithful twelvemonth's guide 
Through icebound steppes and meadows pied. 

12 



Already, in the ghostly night, 

'Mid falling snows, his surtout white. 

Has vanished like a wraith from sight. 

And, in his stead, a youthful form 
Gleams white against the dark'ning storm, 
His check is red, his breath is warm. 

Away! away! Each flying steed 
Devours the road with headlong speed. 
And still their swifter shadows lead. 

Whither, O driver, dost thou know? 
Dost see, far peering through the snow. 
Bright lights of joy, dull gleams of woe? 

He answers not by word or sign. 

This dumb, unheeding guide of mine, 

But cracks the whip and shakes the line. 

Onward, still onward as before. 
We hasten to an unkno\\Ti shore. 
This much I know; and know no more. 

This much I know, yet without dread 
I watch the landscape form ahead, 
I hear the horses' rapid tread. 

For, lower the cloud or shine the sun, 
The journey, long ago begun. 
Sooner or later will be done. 



13 



And whensoever it may end, 

To meet me waits, as I descend. 

With outstretched arms my dearest Friend, 

Him have I ridden far to meet. 
My heart outstrips the flying feet, 
That on the icy pavement beat. 

Look forward, driver, canst thou see 
If near at hand He waits for me. 
Or ride I all this year with thee? 

See'st thou my Father's open door, 
Where this wild journey will.be o'er. 
Over and done forevermore? 

He answers not. Far in the west, — 
How far I ask not; God knows best, — 
Gleam the glad lights of home and rest. 



THE WOODLAND ROSE 

When the early flowers are dead, 
O'er their dust no tear is shed. 
Since the wood-rose lives instead. 

Sparks of bloom upon the spray, 
Fireflies that shine by day. 
Seem its half-blown buds alway. 

14 



Where into the sunny glade 
Forest paths pass out of shade, 
There it loves to ope and fade; 

And it spreads so lightly there 

Leaves, which droop 'mid roadside glare, 

That it seems to float in air. 

With five fragrant wings around, 
It would fain part from the ground, 
Found it not itself stem-bound. 

Here the wandering butterfly. 
Flitting like a sunbeam by, 
Drinks its little goblet dry. 

Thence the wood-bee, robber bold. 

Yellow with its rifled gold. 

Fills with sweets his hive-tree old. 

Of all lives so glad and free. 
Amid sweets and minstrelsy. 
Give thy life, O rose, to me. 



MABEL 

What brings thee down the lane so late, 

Mabel, Mabel, 
What brings thee down the lane so late? 

15 



Why in the starlight dost thou wait, 
Who comes to meet thee at the gate, 
Mabel? 

The sea-breeze through the garden came, 

Mother, Mother, 
It seemed to call me by my name. 
The north-light waved a beckoning flame, 
Tis these, not me, that thou must blame, 

Mother. 

Why didst thou rove so far away, 

Mabel, Mabel? 
'Tis maidenly at home to stay, 
And not amid the shadows gray 
Of starlit hedges thus to stray, 

Mabel. 

I heard a voice across the sea. 

Mother, Mother, 
Call through the open door to me. 
Yes, calling once, twice, thrice for me. 
To answer were but maidenly, 

Mother. 

Twas but the sighing of the wave, 

Mabel, Mabel, 
Thy love lies silent in his grave, 
The jewel of some starless cave. 
And o'er his head the waters rave, 

Mabel. 

i6 



Why in the dew dost linger yet, 

Mabel, Mabel? 
The wind is up, the moon has set, 
Thy hands are cold, thy locks are wet. 
Come home, perchance thou may'st forget, 

Mabel. 

Forget! and thou a woman, too, 

Mother, Mother, 
Is that what thou wouldst have me do? 
Nay, when my father came to woo, 
Did'st thou not swear to aye be true, 

Mother? 

Forget! when every little rose, 

Mother, Mother, 
That fragrant in the hedgerow blows. 
Our parting saw, my promise knows. 
Each one would shame me, where it glows, 

Mother. 

Nay, rather would that I were dead. 

Mother, Mother, 
The wild surf moaning by my bed, 
Here where the pitying rose might shed 
Its leaves like blessings on my head. 

Mother. 

Here, true in death, though desolate, 
Mother, Mother, 

17 



Let me lie where he bade me wait, 
Should he come early or come late, 
Among the roses at the gate, 
Mother. 



A SUNBEAM 

Into a hushed and darkened room, 
A sunbeam crept athwart the gloom. 
And lay, a magic golden ring, 
Upon a couch of suffering. 

To fevered brain and weary eyes. 

It came, a rapture of surprise; 

To sinking mind and wandering thought, 

A dream of life and joy it brought. 

^^ When through my window shines the sun," 
She said, " the springtime has begun; 
All winter long too far and shy 
He is to visit such as I. 

" But when the bluebirds sing about 
The garden trees, and winds are out. 
He round the corner creeps and smiles 
With joy that all my soul beguiles. 

" Now hence, ye dark delirious dreams. 
Bright, in your stead, the crocus gleams, 

i8 



And up and down upon the wall 
Nod hyacinths and violets small. 

" Windflowers, whene'er I close my eyes, 
Shall, painted on the lids, arise. 
And all sweet blooms of wood and dell 
Chase far these visions wild and fell." 

Then to her sad and darkened soul 
A thought of God, like sunshine, stole: 
" He who calls back the flowers," cried she, 
" Surely has not forgotten me. 

" All through the winter's cold and gloom 

I lay, alive, as in a tomb. 

As sad, as dark, as far from God 

As if already 'neath the sod. 

" But now a sunbeam from the skies 
Calls me, with snowdrops, to arise; 
Wide open every casement fling, 
I live, I breathe, for it is spring." 

DAISIES AND CLOVER-TOPS 

I HAD a dream of springtime. 
In the long winter night. 
When earth was lost in darkness, 
And heaven alone was bright — 
A dream of fields of clover, 
Of daisies white and small, 

19 



Of breezes faint with odor, 
And blue sky over all. 

Pink balls of bloom and honey, 
Now drenched with morning dew, 
Now to the wild bee nodding. 
The springtime lives in you. 

Through all the dreary winter. 
Your sweetness underground 
Fills the faint heart with courage. 
Makes our slow pulses bound. 

Fair daisies tipped with morning. 
Crowned with a golden crown. 
Like dormice soundly sleeping 
In nests so snug and brown, 

I see you through the snow-drifts, 
I see you, or I dream. 
In rose-tints of the evening. 
And sunlight's yellow gleam. 

Oh! fields of blooming clover! 

Oh! daisies small and white! 

Oh! breezes faint with odor! 

Oh! sweetness of delight! 

Oh! loveliness and beauty. 
If you from earth had fled. 
The clover-tops and daisies 
Might call you from the dead. 

20 



THISTLE-SWEETNESS 

They sauntered down the sunny lane, 
The lady and her lover; 
The roadside was a wild of bloom, 
The fields were sweet with clover. 

Through tangled hedge and meadow green, 
Blithe rang the blackbird's whistle; 
Apart, in solitary pride. 
Stood here and there a thistle. 

Fair lady, cried the youth, I would 
The birds and flowers might woo thee 
To listen, for a moment's space. 
To me that humbly sues thee. 

But still the lady turned her head, 
And cried. Nay, cease thy pleading; 
Find rather in the thistle-flower 
A lesson for thy reading. 

See how she ever stands apart. 
Her robe of thorns around her; 
He who would pluck her purple bloom 
Soon rues that he has found her. 

I too am fain to dwell alone, 
So strive no more to woo me, 

21 



'Twere quite in vain for bird or flower, 
Angel or man to sue me. 

Lady, the thistle in its heart 
Stores honey sweet as roses, 
The wild bee loves her better far 
Than half the softer posies. 

He does not care how many thorns 
Warn others from the treasure, 
But drinks from out her perfumed cup 
Contentment without measure. 

I, like the wild bee, would aspire 
To leave the crowd behind me. 
And solitary drink the cup 
Of happiness assigned me. 

Nay, frown not, lady, that I long 
To read in full completeness 
The answer to that riddle dark, 
The key to thistle-sweetness. 

Why then, she cried, with sudden smile, 
Since you'll take no dismissal. 
It were a shame that I should be 
More cruel than a thistle. 



22 



LITTLE BELGIAN CHILDREN 

This heart-song was copied throughout the English- 
speaking world. 

Poor little baby children, 

Ten thousand, four years old; 

And all of them are hungry! 
And all of them are cold! 

They flee, like frantic lambkins, 
When the wolf is in the fold. 

There is no place, no corner. 

Where they may lay their head. 

They're crying for their supper; 
They're crying for their bed. 

They dare not look behind them. 
Where the angry sky is red. 

The frightened little children 
Cling to their mother's gown. 

Her arms are full of babies, 
She cannot put them down; 

She drags the toddlers with her 
Away from the burning town. 

The fields are full of cannon. 
There's neither milk nor bread; 

23 



A rattling vulture airship 

Is hovering overhead, 
And in the freezing trenches 

Lie their fathers, stark and dead. 

Bring freely forth, ye Christians, 
Your frankincense and gold; 

Christ calls you to the rescue 
(He once was four years old) 

To save His little children 

From the famine and from cold. 



TAKING IN THE FLOWERS 

When come the days of early frosty 

Ere golden leaves turn brown. 
When apples in the orchard grass 

Fall red and ripe adown. 
While still the drowsy world is fair 

Rise, Flora, and begin 
With gentle hand and tender care 

To bring the flowers in. 

The fuchsia with its pendent gems, 
Pale roses with sweet lips, 

Lilies as white as 'gainst the sky 
Shine sun-lit sails of ships. 

Carnations, drifted isles of spice. 
That woo us with their breath, 

24 



Acacia with her golden hair 
Too beautiful for death. 

Come, bring them in, the tender ones, 

Ere, like a priest, the frost 
Strew them, the embers, black and seared, 

Of his great holocaust; 
Before the fury of the wind 

And the devouring rain 
Leave of their beauty on the walks 

Only a clinging stain. 

Ah! bring them in, and softly lay 

The lesson to thy heart; 
Twill prove an anodyne of pain. 

Perchance may heal the smart. 
Thou, who dost shield thy tender rose, 

Remember, and with shame. 
That thou hast murmured at the Lord 

Because He did the same. 

Did He not see the evil day, 

The beating rain of sin. 
The frosts of unbelief and care. 

And take His flowers in? 
Though howling sorrow shake thy soul 

From root to topmost leaf. 
The safety of God's hidden ones 

May comfort e'en thy grief. 



HOW PEARLS GROW 

Fathoms deep in the quiet sea, 
The pearls are growing silently, 
Growing, in darkness, round and white 
With fold on fold of silv'ry light. 

The moonlight floods the summer sky. 
But not one beam falls where they lie. 
Yet drops of moonlight, such as these, 
Are only found beneath the seas. 

Wouldst know how pearls and oysters dwell 
So different in the selfsame shell? 
Wouldst know whence come these wonders bright 
To grace the dusky ear with light? 

Then if the comfort of thy life 
Is vanquished by some petty strife. 
Some worthless thought, some grain of sand. 
Thou art the one to understand, — 

For this is how pearls come to be 
Fathoms deep in the quiet sea; 
This is how pearls and oysters dwell. 
So different in the selfsame shell. 



26 



CROSSING THE STYX 

In the plaintive old-time story, 
Stands the boatman stern and hoary, 

Ready every soul to meet; 
Which, with cries and bitter weeping, 
From all love and love's fond keeping 

Turns with backward, lingering feet. 

Young and old alike all groping 
In the dark, for nothing hoping, 

Throng to meet him on the shore; 
Then the still and sullen river. 
Without ripple, without shiver. 

Silently they ferry o'er. 

As its clammy mists grow thicker. 
And the fading sunbeams flicker 

Ever fainter through the gloom. 
Close upon each earthly pleasure. 
Every heart's best hope and treasure. 

The black portals of the tomb. 

Hearts, which cease at length to languish, 
Lose, with all they love, their anguish 

In a calm more dead than they. 
Without yesterday or morrow. 
Seeing, with departing sorrow, , 

Hope's bright garments float away. 

27 



But since came the blest evangel, 
Waits there now a helping angel 

Where old Charon stood of yore; 
And, across the shaded region, 
Gleams from pearly gates Elysian 

Fleck each turbid billow o'er. 

So, the dying vision turning 
Upward with a heavenly yearning. 

Meets full often radiant eyes; 
Sees there love which changes never, 
Hope, unclouded now forever, 

Faith, triumphant in the skies. 



ST. CECILIA 

This poem was suggested from looking at the tradi- 
tional portrait of this saint and patroness of music, as 
she stands, her lyre set down at her feet, intently looking 
up into heaven. 

For thee the angels sing, sweet soul. 
And hushed is thy forgotten lyre, 
All earthly music dies away 
When praise attunes those lips of fire. 

As when the brooklet finds the sea, 
Its song is lost forevermore, 
Before that glorious symphony 
Whose deep vibrations shake the shore. 

28 



Who praises God to heaven draws near; 
There is no wonder in thine eyes, 
Thy soul, that joins the angels' hymn, 
Feels at their presence no surprise. 

Yet e'en thy silence has a voice 
Sweeter than melody could be, 
Thou gazest heavenward, and we long 
To be all eye and ear with thee. 

Like thee the soul cannot express 
Its highest thought by lyre and tongue; 
But rapt in ecstasy stands mute. 
Leaving its noblest songs unsung. 

Yet there are silences that wake 
Feelings which words could never reach. 
When soul drav\^s near to soul on wings 
That soar above the bounds of speech. 



DEBORAH 

Suggested by a discussion in the Boston Baptist 
Ministers* Conference. 

Under the palm-tree was her seat. 

Where, amid trial and defeat, 

The land learned wisdom at her feet. 

29 



Her fearless, future-piercing eye 
Leaped past the thronging danger nigh 
To vict'ry, coming by and by. 

Her war-cry, like a tocsin bell. 

Arousing captive Israel, 

Rang out the fierce oppressor's knell. 

Down through the ages rolls along 
The mighty torrent of her song. 
Like Kishon's river deep and strong. 

A thousand generations bless 
This war-inspiring prophetess, 
" Mother in Israel," nathless. 

None censure her heroic deed. 
When, in its hour of sternest need, 
Her country from the yoke she freed. 

So now when woman claims the right 
To battle with the powers of night, 
Cry, '' Welcome, sisters, to the fight!" 

Who knows, perchance ye yet may bless 
The day, when Israel's distress 
To soldier changed the prophetess. 



30 



WINTER -RAINS 

Ah! e'en the Winter, at the heart, 

Is not all cold; 
Though he be wrapped in ice and rime, 

Fold upon fold. 
The sighing of the south-wind finds 

A way through all. 
And, melting every barrier down, 

The warm tears fall. 

The Winter has a loving heart 

Ye little know. 
Who only mark the chilling winds. 

The frost and snow; 
He loves full well the tangled dells 

Where rabbits hide. 
All the fine tracery of the woods. 

Though brown and dried. 

His very breath upon the pane 

Reveals his heart. 
All the small beauties of the glade 

There bear their part; 
The tender mosses and the ferns 

Are limned so fair. 
That little children stretch their hands 

To pluck them there. 

31 



All night, adown the half-thawed street, 

The waters glide, 
Melting the ice and snow they meet. 

To swell the tide. 
Slipping and sliding out of sight, 

To reach the sea. 
What rapture on a winter's night 

To be frost free! 

Not with the merry splash of showers 

Of summer-time; 
But plodding on as one who toils 

'Mid mud and grime; 
Yet happy at the appointed task. 

Whatever it be. 
Knowing that power to do one's work 

Is liberty. 



THE CHRISTMAS -SHEAF 

In brief Norwegian summers. 
How blithely laughs the sun. 
How blithely laugh the waters 
That down the hillsides run. 
Till broad fiords receive them 
To silence, one by one. 

How green the little valleys 
That hide among the hills; 

32 



How spicy sweet the fragrance 
The dark pine wood distills; 
How hushed the Sabbath stillness 
Which all its arches fills! 

Glowing with golden beauty 
The ripened wheat-fields shine, 
The poppies and the corn-flowers 
About them spring and twine, 
Like an illumined border 
Round text of love divine. 

No wonder that the harvest 
Should stand so stout and fair; 
The birds have sung their blessing 
Above it everywhere. 
Have warbled charms of blessing 
O'er sunshine, dew and air. 

But when the sheaves are gathered 

Upon the creaking wain. 

The birds all sing as loudly 

As robins in spring rain; 

They know that they at Christmas 

Shall feast upon the grain. 

The last sheaf of the harvest 
Stands in the barn apart, 
Its ripeness and its fullness 
Are not for house or mart; 

33 



The others feed man's hunger, 
But this shall feed his heart. 

For when the bitter winter 
Brings back the Christmas tide, 
In every snowy garden 
Through all the country side, 
From palace unto cottage, 
The Christmas-sheaf is tied. 

Then from their hiding-places 
In hedge and thicket brown, 
From out the twisted gables 
And chimneys of the town. 
From rocky clefts and crannies 
The birds come flocking down. 

They eat, most gladly welcome, 
One thankful lay they sing, 
A prophecy and blessing 
To rich and poor they bring, 
A prophecy of sunshine. 
Of plenty and of spring. 



WINTER 

Cold blows the bitter wind, 
Freezing the blue lakes o'er, 
Snowflakes are in the air, 
Snowbirds are at the door. 

34 



Dark axe the dreary days, 
Long is the dreary night, 
Fled with the singing birds 
All beauty and delight. 

Even the brook's last song, 
Smothered, has passed away. 
Still is the snowy night. 
Silent the leaden day. 

Only with fiercer life. 
Since summer calms are o'er, 
The ocean's mighty pulse 
Beats ceaseless on the shore. 

Only the moaning wind 
Utters its voice aloud. 
And, from earth's bosom cold, 
Tears off the snowy shroud. 

Oh! but to hear one glad 
Whirr of the swallow's wing! 
Oh! for one fragrant kiss 
From the sweet mouth of Spring! 

Cold blows the bitter wind. 
Freezing the blue lakes o'er. 
Snow-wreaths bend down the trees, 
Snowbirds are at the door. 

35 



WATER-LILIES 

Floating upon a northern lake 
Dark with reflected shade, 
Which only plashes on the shore 
Where lonely herons wade, 
In spot so hidden and remote, 
That hardly in a dream 
It e'er has gladdened human eye, 
The water-lilies gleam. 

White flecks upon the dark expanse 

Like stars upon the sky. 

Or distant wave-caps on the sea, 

They far and fragrant lie; 

The passing wild swans bend their necks, 

As swiftly on they fly. 

To greet these beauties of the lake 

With wild and mournful cry. 

Like water in a thirsty land, 

Their breath so faint and sweet 

Came to me 'mid the sullen roar 

And tumult of the street; 

But closed their leaves, and drooped their heads, 

Like captives in the mart; 

Let others take you home, I cried. 

For I have not the heart. 

36 



No flowers are these for household use; 

To show their native grace, 

For border they must have the woods, 

A lakelet for a vase. 

Let pansies in the garden bloom 

And roses by the door, 

Pond-lilies like the birds are wild. 

Once plucked are fair no more. 



LEAF -BUDS 

Such tiny little things, so brown 

One scarcely sees them in cold weather, 
Hugging so close the parent stem. 

Or nestling sociably together; 
You would not think a spray of leaves, 

A branch was there, all blossom-laden. 
Quite long enough, ere spring has fled, 

To weave a garland for a maiden. 

Even before the winter draws 

His bolts and bars of ice asunder. 
The buds begin to grow and swell. 

And feel the spring e'en in their slumber; 
But when the south wind, truant-like. 

Comes coyly making its advances. 
The swaddling-bands grow all too strait. 

And leaves break out in airy dances. 

37 



Where did they hide those folds on folds 
Of green and red, crimped so demurely 

Beneath the little waterproofs, 

From every storm tucked in securely 1 

And not alone the present growth, 

But all the beauty of the season. 
The buds, the blossoms and the fruit, 

The wise men say, not without reason, 
Here hide away in fairy-wise, 

In this brown shell, their wondrous beauty, 
Until the coming of the spring 

Makes growth and loveliness a duty. 

O ye who feel this life not all. 

Who reach toward the distant dawning, 
And, not content with twilight gleams, 

Hope still that somewhere there is morning; 
Ye are the buds upon the vine — 

Hidden within the bloom, the cluster, 
Which needs another, milder time. 

To give the grape its ripened lustre. 

Ye do not know — how can ye tell 

From stirrings of imprisoned sweetness, 

When ye are given space to climb. 
What is the measure of completeness? 



38 



TWILIGHT 

Hark! 
How in the dark 
Each sound grows distincter, 
Each murmur a sound, 
The hoofs of the cattle 
Ring on the hard ground, 
The sharp cropping of grass, 
A bite here and there, 
And the tinkling of bells 
Come on the cool air. 

See! 
Over the lea. 
The fireflies are glancing 
Like jewels with wings, 
And the ghost-moth in flitting 
A silvery gleam flings; 
While the stars overhead 
Wink out one by one, 
And a glow belts the west 
Where daylight has gone. 

Now, 
Under the bough. 
All dripping with perfume 
As eaves drip with rain, 

39 



All scents, faint at noonday, 
Grow sweeter again. 
They crowd and they gather, 
'Till the motionless air 
Is heavy with odors. 
Exhaled everywhere. 

Come, 
Come let us roam 
Abroad through the valley, 
Like Eden this hour. 
With beauty and sweetness 
And rest for its dower; 
Come dream in the twilight. 
Aye, dream while we may; 
To-morrow is hasting, 
And toil dawns v^ith day. 



THE OLD PINE-TREE BY THE GATE 

Green, when all other leaves are brown 
And whirled from their high places down. 
Bright Summer's shade, but Winter's crown. 
We hail thee, old pine-tree. 

When through the jfields the storm-wind raves, 
And Winter stumbles o'er the graves 
Of flowers, 'neath forest architraves. 
He leaves no mark on thee. 

40 



Thy many boughs, bowed 'neath the snow, 
Spring back and let it fall below, 
The still air rings as from a blow, 
And all the woodlands hear. 

The bitterest frost, which knows no ruth, 
May try on thee his sharpest tooth. 
He finds a fruitless task forsooth, 
He turns not one leaf sear. 

When April opes each ice-locked spring, 
Teaching the silent year to sing. 
She finds in thee a minor string. 
Her fingers love to try. 

For heard 'neath all the warbling strains, 
Her whispering winds, her merry rains, 
A tender undertone remains 
Of plaintive mystery. 

As one, who, when all others sleep, 
Has heard a secret, grand and deep. 
He longs to tell, yet cannot speak. 
Thou seemest, ancient tree. 

Say! would thy dryad bent and old 
Some long-lived sorrow fain unfold. 
Which must forever rest untold, 
A groan to all but thee? 

41 



Ah! many, like to thee, old pine, 
Stand stoutly on through shade and shine, 
Whose heart-song is as sad as thine, 
A wordless agony; 

Whose broken idols, hid away. 
May never see the light of day, 
Yet murmur through their words alway 
A plaintive melody. 



THE TIDE 

A MURMUROUS sigh along the shore, 

Where gleams the sinuous sand, 
A distant whisper at the bar, 
Tells all the listening land 
That now, at last. 
The ebb is past 
And the tide is coming in. 

How slowly creeps th' advancing wave, 

You scarce can see it rise. 

As to each crevice of the rock 

It slips in humble guise; 

Yet 'tis the sign 

Of power divine. 

For the tide is coming in. 

42 



Anon it lifts the stranded weeds 
And floats them on its breast, 
It leaps the barriers, one by one. 
And shakes its flashing crest; 
For naught can stay 
Its conquering way, 
As the tide comes sweeping in. 

E'en when adown the shingly strand 

The waters loud retreat, 
'Tis only that their next advance 
May lave the meadow's feet; 
Defeat, you see. 
Is victory. 
When the rising tide comes in. 

Fear not its dashing and its roar, 

But trust it and prevail, 
'Twill lift thy shallop o'er the bar, 
'Twill speed thy homeward sail; 
Look, far and wide. 
On every side 
God's tide comes rushing in. 

WITH THE TIDE 

Her father was born and died by the ocean. 

With the rising tide, he was born. 
On the edge of a summer morn; 
Creeping and whispering to the shore, 

43 



It promised much and hinted more 
Of the life that was to be, 
Its joy and its misery. 

First they heard it, when far away 
It broke on the rocks in the bay 
With a sullen mutter and roar — 
But silent it stole to the shore 
To stretch itself out on the sands; 
In and out through the marshy lands 
It glided and shone like a snake. 
Ah! that was a time to awake. 

And so when the tide was high 
He greeted it with a cry. 



At the turn of the night he died, 

Drawn away with the falling tide; 

Wave by wave, breath by breath they fell, 

The sea and its lover as well, 
Sob by sob, sigh by sigh. 
Pulse by pulse, they both die. 

Past the fainting moon overhead 
Torn and ghostly the cloud rack fled. 
But her light through the trembling air 
Showed the beaches beaten and bare, 
While farther into the night 
The black water slipped from sight. 

44 



Still he lay with his eyelids closed, 
His breathing hushed, his limbs composed, 
And with ears that but dully heard 
He awaited the Master^s word. 
His life still slipping away 
Like the waters in the bay. 

A boat on the outgoing sea. 
Where the estuary of life 
Glides out into eternity. 
Without a ripple, without strife; 
So his life went out with the tide. 
In the summer night he died. 



CHRISTMAS, 191S 

When shines the Christmas star 

The children all come home; 

Though far from me they dwell. 

Though distant they may roam, 

I hear, before the day is light, 

Their whispered joy, their hushed delight. 

When Christmas comes again 
They climb upon my bed. 
Their lips caress my cheek. 
Their arms around my head. 
Their rifled stockings flung away 
Already at the dawn of day. 

45 



All through the Christmas hours 
In the still house I hear, 
While gay disorder reigns, 
Glad sounds of life and cheer. 
Voices of children and of toys, 
Commingled in a joyful noise. 

When Christmas evening falls. 

The merry crew I see 

Salute with shining eyes 

The magic-fruited tree, 

And gather in, with laugh and cheer, 

The last, best harvest of the year. 

Gay Christmas comes again. 
The children, where are they? 
Fair women, stalwart men 
Stand in their place to-day. 
Yet when I look deep in their eyes 
I see the childish soul arise. 

Though far away they dwell. 
Though distant they may roam. 
On Christmas day they come. 
The children all come home; 
Their inmost heart is glad to be 
At home, with father and with me. 



46 



ON CHRISTMAS DAY— 1915 

Her last Christmas. Her children asked her to write 
them a song for the day. 

On Christmas day, on Christmas day, 
What says my heart on Christmas day? 
Dear children, erst my babies small, 
My heart sends greetings to you all, 
On Christmas clay. 

Your children, growing by your side. 
Teach you our love, our faith, our pride, 
As you to them, so we to you 
Are linked by chains tender and true. 
On Christmas day. 

A thousand hopes, a thousand fears, 
Joys, sorrows, laughter, sunshine, tears; 
All these and many thousand more 
Come thronging out, through memory's door, 
On Christmas day. 

The fire you lit when first you came. 
Burns ever with more brilliant flame. 
And so we greet you, while we may, 
Once more, once more. 
On Christmas day. 

47 



WHAT THEY SAY 

They say that I am old! 
Aye; so are the fountains, 
That for unnumbered years 
Sing clear in the mountains. 
Temples may fall awa}^, 
The rocks themselves decay, 
Yet they sing on and on, 
Voices of Helicon. 

They say that I am old! 
My soul won't receive it, — 
With endless life begun. 
How can she believe it? 
Past the remotest star 
She sees her road stretch far: 
Can what must live for aye, 
Turn aged in a day? 

They tell me I must die! 
What then is this dying? 
A sword that cuts the cord, 
And sets the bird flying. 
Heaven's windows open stand, 
Whence a dear pierced hand, 
Out-reaching, draws her in 
A new song to begin. 

48 



THOUGHT QUESTIONINGS 

Where hast thou been, my soul, oh, tell me where? 
Thou wast not formed with this thy frail abode, — 
This clay is but a drag, a painful load 
For one the native of some different air. '' 

In sleep I hear sweet music, here unknown. 
And all within me rises at the sound, 
Which seems to wrap me, as a veil, around. 
Something of such a plaintive, soothing tone, 
That even now I sigh, as 'twere the song 
With which my mother lull'd me erst to sleep, — 
And in my spirit, long-suppressed and deep. 
The echo answers with vibrations strong. 

When sunset fills the woods with softened light, 
And the zephyrs all vocal make the trees. 
One feels a mystery in all he sees; 
Perchance it is the coming of the night, 
That fills his heart with such an awful joy. 
He fears to speak it, lest he break the charm, 
And yet 'tis more than the prevailing calm. 
That gives to every sense such glad employ. 

There is a something in the breathing wind. 

And in the very shading of the sky. 

That lifts the wings by which our spirits fly, 

49 



And phafes them 'gainst the fetters that them bind; 
Say not 'tis fancy, it is something more, 
'Tis as the veil that hides some dreamed of face, 
The mist that shadows o'er some lovely place. 
Which straight we know, though never seen before. 

Oh! am I earth-born, as the grass, the flowers, 
That future days will see upon my grave? 
Nay, they who say so, but as maniacs rave; 
I feel my soul has seen those heavenly bowers, 
Whither my feet, my thoughts so eager fly; 
Like a lost child, I wear a costly dress, — 
Though soiled by wandering in the wilderness, 
It speaks my birthplace and my lineage high. 



THE BROOK 

Listen in the quiet meadow 
How the brooklet flows. 
Rippling on in light and shadow. 
Laughing as it goes. 

Wearing smooth with ceaseless kisses 
Each misshapen stone. 
Adding to its store of blisses 
Yet another tone. 

Finding music in the grasses. 
Though they choke the way, 

50 



Laughing still, it greets and passes 
Woods that hide the day. 

Thus each pebble that would bar it 
Makes its song more clear, 
Every tangle that would mar it 
Adds but to its cheer. 

Happy brooklet of the meadow, 
Let me learn of thee, 
Teach thy song of shine and shadow 
Even unto me. 



MORNING IN A GREAT CITY 

Morning is rising on the city's towers, » 
And the first sunbeam, slanting upward, lies 
Upon the housetops. Now begins to rise 
The smoke, dark herald of the busy hours. 
See! how it changes 'neath the hand of morn, 
From deepest gray to amethystine hues; 
And, as advance the streakings of the dawn. 
Unites the opal's fire with those soft blues 
Which Autumn shows us in the hazy sky. 
Then as the sim uplifts him from the plain. 
The curling wreaths before his coming fly. 
And leave the heavens without one dusky stain. 
The city lies all open to the day, 
And sleep on heavy pinions floats away. 

SI 



HOME AT NIGHT 

I STOOD amid the crowded ways 

Where toil and traffic meet, 
And thought I heard time's pendule swing; 

'Twas but the rush of feet. 

I thought I heard the cry of earth, 

The groaning of her pain; 
It was the city's roar and din 

That sank and rose again. 

Oh weary Hfe, oh dreary way, 

Oh unavaiHng fight! 
Who could outlive the anxious day. 

Came he not home at night? 

Home, home at night! The golden heads, 

The auburn and the brown. 
Are shining 'gainst the window-panes. 

In country and in town; 

The door is opened with a shout. 

And, from the outside cold. 
The weary man by tender hands 

Is drawn into the fold. 

52 



Sweet foretaste of the Father's house, 
Through whose star-windows bright 

We see so many eager eyes 
Watch for us ev'ry night; 

So many tender hands draw back 

The doorway curtain blue, 
As weary feet the threshold press 

And joyfully pass through. 

And where the Heavenly Father's voice. 

That dearest voice and best. 
Says, Come, poor child, poor footsore child, 

Welcome to home and rest. 



THE SPRINGTIME COMES AGAIN 

The springtime comes again, dear Love, 

The days we hold so dear; 

The flickering shadows on the grass. 

The flower-breath far and near. 

The callow birdlings stretch their throats 

For berries bright with dew; 

The charm lacks only you, dear Love, 

The charm lacks only you. 

I sit among the ripening grass, 
The fruit-blooms fall around, 
Whene'er the south wind stirs the trees, 
Circling unto the ground. 

53 



I idly watch the idle clouds 

Melt back into the blue; 

I needs must think of you, dear Love, 

I needs must think of you. 

The days have slowly grown to years, 

And yet they seem not long, 

Since our two lives ran into one 

Like melody and song; 

They have not all been halcyon days, 

Yet send He rose or rue, 

I thank my God for you, dear Love, 

I thank my God for you. 

The days are not all halcyon days, 

And yet the white dove, peace. 

Has made our home her nest the while, 

And still her joys increase. 

It is not every heart hath rest. 

Whatever the world may do; 

But mine has rest in you, dear Love, 

Has perfect rest in you. 

Eor had I closed my eyes in death. 

And turned me to depart. 

One kiss of thine, e'en were I cold. 

Would warm me to the heart; 

And if from all this hollow world, 

I take but one thing true, 

'Twill be the thought of you, dear Love, 

'Twill be the thought of you. 

54 



A BABY SONG 

Two eyes so deep, so dark, so clear, 
Like still lakes in a silent land. 
Into their tranquil depths I peer 
And long their dreams to understand. 

Two lips like sunrise on the snow. 
When all the hills transfigured glow. 
But shall I never, never learn 
Their songs that like the streamlets flow? 

Upon the threshold of the world. 
Thy new-born soul on tiptoe waits, 
And dreams and sings till speech, one day, 
Shall open throw her pearly gates. 

And the first words, like trembling doves, 
Cling to thy lips, afraid *and shy. 
Slowly unfold their silver wings. 
And, one by one, learn how to fly. 



EVERLASTING DAYS 

As the moon that in the heavens 

Shineth alway. 
Though she be by earth's black shadow 

Hid for a day, 

55 



Is the life that faileth never, 
Never for aye. 

As the river ever singing 

Unto the sun, 
Though beneath a cloud in darkness 

Now it may run, 
Is the life that faileth never, 

Never is done. 

Death the shadow of the gateway 

Upon the sod, 
As we pass through from the meadows 

Our feet have trod, 
Entering the Golden City 

To dwell with God. 



FLOWERS LAID ON THE BREAST OF HER 
BROTHER FREDDIE'S BODY 

Dear friend, thanks for the tender thought 
That laid upon our darling's breast 
The sweet blossoms, which, 'mid all his joys, 
He ever loved the best. 

Oft as the spring called violets forth 
He found the firstlings of the wood, 

56 



And knew, in autumn's soberer days^ 
Where the last aster stood. 

Amid the treasures of our home 
His flowerets claim our tenderest care, — 
Alas! that he should fade so soon 
And they remain so fair. 

Dear friend, thou knowest well the pain 
That fills our hearts, as day by day 
We watch the uncurling leaves he loved, 
And he so far away. 

But well we know sweet Sharon's rose 
Blooms for him on the heavenly plain, 
And joying in his happiness 

Our hearts cannot complain. 

Then take the thanks of those whose grief 
Thy tender love has borne in part. 
And may the flowers thus sent e'er shed 
Sweet fragrance in thy heart. 



DEATH PASSED MY WAY 

One time, Death passed my way; 
His robe, confused and gray. 
Enwrapped, a night cloud dun, 
My vision of the sun. 

57 



But, as a father might 
Hush a scared child's affright, 
He whispered, "Look and see 
The face that smiles on thee." 

I looked and straight forgot 
My thoughts, and heeded not 
The haunting line that ran, 
" The shadow feared of man." 

The eyes of love divine 
Shone calmly into mine, 
And, as in Israel's night, 
Shot all the cloud with light. 

Lord, since Thou didst not give 
To see Thy face and live, 
I know the secret why 
We see Thy face and die. 



UNDER THE CYPRESS VINE 

Under a spreading walnut-tree, over the graves of 
a mother and her three infant boys, crept a cypress vme. 

Ah! bind them gently, tender vine, 

The one unto the other, 
The graves, o'er which thy tendrils twine. 

Most precious treasure cover; 

58 



Enwreathe them in thy soft embrace, 

Those whom we never sever; 
In fondest thought their names shall be 

One memory forever. 

The mother and her bright-haired boys, 

Now never to be parted, 
Have met upon that shining shore, 

Where meet the holy-hearted; 
The sunshine, through the walnut-leaves. 

Falls where they lie together. 
And there the rain calls out the flowers, 

In tearful April weather. 

The vine has bound them all in one ; 

Its blossoms, ever seeming — 
Hiding with crimson bloom the graves — 

To have a sacred meaning; 
A symbol of the precious blood 

That saved both child and mother. 
Which he, who marks the Christless dead, 

Has seen and passed them over. 



THE EMPTY HOUSE 

Ah! the dreary house and old. 
There across the way; 

In full sunshine it stands cold, 
Like ghosts seen by day. 

59 



Its uncurtained windows stare 
As with dumb surprise; 

Or the vacant blindness share 
Of an idol's eyes. 

Since the children's feet are gone 
From the echoing floor, 

The house takes a weirdness en, 
Never seen before. 

Vine and rose still cling about, 

Tap against the pane; 
Winds at every doorway shout. 

And entreats the rain; 

Yet it has no answering voice, 

All its music fled, 
It can sorrow nor rejoice, 

For the house is dead. 



Ah, the dreary world and old. 

Sun and star and clod! 
Full of beauty, yet so cold 

If there be no God. 

If the beckoning heavens cry not, 
" Here thy Father dwells," 

If there be no tender thought 
In the ferny dells, 

60 



If the roses on the hills, 
Vacant stare and shine, 

If the network of the rills, 
Traced no hand divine, 

If there be indeed no God, 
As vain man has said. 

What care we for star or sod. 
For the world is dead. 



THE SKYLARK'S NEST 

The meadows are twinkling with dew. 
The daisies are opening their eyes. 
Gold fringes the curtain of blue, 
Which evening drew over the skies. 

The sun has but purpled the hill, 
And touched the tall tree-tops with light; 
The lanes yet are shady and still, 
And sweet with the perfumes of night. 

Alone in the midst of the grass, 
A nest stands all vacant and bare. 
The breezes, which whisper and pass. 
Find no ans'ring whisperers there. 

A nest without music and love, 
Deserted upon the cold ground! 

6i 



But hark! from blue heaven above, 
There falls a sweet shower of sound. 

Wouldst know whence this rapture of song, 
That pierces the mist-laden air? 
Dawn comes, though the night may be long. 
When the larks sing, the nest must be bare. 

Then weep not, fond mother, so sore 
O'er nests whence the songsters have fled; 
The earth may be still evermore. 
But hark! there is music overhead. 



STAR AND LILY 

Star of the cold and wintry sky, 
Across immeasurable spaces 
Flinging a sheaf of arrowy beams. 
E'en heaven itself thy beauty graces. 

Thy message of the power of God, 
Who traced thine orbit with His finger, 
Might freeze the current of my blood, 
Cause hope to halt and faith to linger 

Did not the lily, faint and frail. 
Here in my window garden growing. 
Remind me, by its fragrant breath. 
Of words with mercy overflowing. 

62 



For God made both; His mighty hand, 
The vast and seething ball upholding, 
Is, with a light and tender touch. 
The lily's crystal bells unfolding. 

They are but dust, the fiery star, 
The lovely, fragrant, fleeting flower. 
Though one may shine unnumbered years, 
And one may fade within an hour; 

They are but dust. Within me burns 
A light akin to light supernal — 
Where could I trust my deathless soul 
Save in the care of Love Eternal? 

GRASS 

I LOVE the grass, the roadside grass. 

Through sultry summer days 

It calleth unto all who pass 

To leave the beaten ways. 

And find it, after dust and heat, 

A pathway soft to weary feet. 

At first it merely skirts the road 

Along a field of grain, 

Then, where the shelving banks begin, 

It groweth thick again: 

And, where the pine-woods scent the air, 

It springs up sparsely here and there. 

63 



And as it rests my weary foot, 
I love to think how oft 
Our Saviour's dusty sandal pressed 
Its carpet green and soft; 
When, at the close of busy day. 
He turned His steps to Bethany. 

It must have loved to make His path 

With thousand odors sweet. 

And stretching up with eager haste 

Caressed His blessed feet; 

Or resting ever humbly bent, 

To mark the way His footsteps went. 

Oh! there is hardly one small joy 

In all the country side. 

Which by His word, or look, or touch, 

Christ has not sanctified; 

The grass, the clouds, the flowers, the birds^ 

Speak of Him, loud as uttered words. 

It takes away all fear that He 

Will e'er forget His own. 

When of the very grass He spoke 

In such a tender tone. 

And, though Heaven's King, remembers yet 

The evening walks on Olivet. 



64 



GOD'S PEACE 

Suggested by Christians in the war zones and in the 
mountains of Armenia. 

There is a peace, far mightier than war, 

That battle, horror, murder cannot quench. 

That smiles serene close to death's open door. 

That sings its song e'en in the blood-stained trench. 

O peace of God, life of the trusting heart. 

All is not lost where thou a dweller art. 

Jesus, behold. Thy suffering children lie 

In the red fires of torture, grief and shame. 

Yet, by Thy grace, they bravely live and die. 

Since Thou dost walk with them amidst the flame. 

From Thee their strength, from Thee their courage 

springs. 
Great Prince of Peace, Thou art the King of kings. 



THE EMPTY NEST 

The winter wind blows through the night, 

Where wild woods toss, where wild woods toss, 

Complaining ever in its flight. 

Of grief and loss, of grief and loss. 

65 



The empty nest in orchard croft 

Sways with the bough, sways with the bough; 
Once full of song it swung aloft, — 

How empty now, how empty now! 

The snow comes drifting on the wind 

Across the lea, across the lea. 
As one who, leaving hope behind, 

Can only flee, can only flee. 

It heaps into the empty nest 

All it can hold, all it can hold; 
No more by love and music blessed. 

But still and cold, but still and cold. 

Why should it seek a place of rest 

So sad and lone, so sad and lone? 
Why linger in an empty nest, 

Whose birds have flown, whose birds have flown? 

O mother, fainting and distressed. 

Beside thy dead, beside thy dead, 
Look upward from the empty nest; 

Thy bird has fled, thy bird has fled! 



66 



THE OPEN GRAVE 

The occasion of this song is not known, but it was 
read as very appropriate at the author's burial. 

The cypress boughs sway to and fro, 
The open grave is strait and low, 
Weeping above and peace below. 

Oh, weary feet that climbed to bliss. 
Your many paths but led to this, 
One step from summit to abyss. 

Oh, busy brain, that, never still. 
Dreamed ever, but ne'er dreamed of ill, 
Thou now art quiet 'gainst thy will. 

But eager soul that now dost fling 
This dust from thine unfolding wing. 
It is not thee, they hither bring. 

And thou too, body, e'en to thee, 
This is the gate that sets thee free. 
From pain and from mortality. 

Enter and close behind the door. 

Which grass and flowers shall bolt and bar, 

As if 'twere shut forevermore. 

(^7 



Yet, from that bed so dark and low, 
Immortal shall from mortal grow. 
As winter-bulbs in springtime blow. 

And what was closed in grief and pain. 
With joy shall open fly again, 
At the last trumpet's loud acclaim. 



A TWILIGHT SONG 

Now the deep'ning tides of night 
Meet the yellow sands of day. 

And, as pales the sunset light. 
Fades the busy world away, 
At the twilight hour. 

Hesper shines with brightening face; 

Lord, my spirit turns to Thee, 
Earth becomes a holy place. 

Where my Brother talks with me, 
At the twilight hour. 

After Thee, the words I say, 

'' Father, let Thy kingdom come." 

Teach me how to truly pray. 
Let my spirit not be dumb, 
At the twilight hour. 

68 



To the sowers of the seed, 
To the reapers, worn, yet glad, 

All the gifts and grace they need. 
Richly from Thy treasures add. 
At the twilight hour. 

Not alone to bear Thy name. 
But to follow with the cross. 

Let this, Jesus, be my aim. 

Let me count the world but dross. 
At the twilight hour. 

Then, when morning bids me wake. 
Glad to labor and achieve, 

I will bid the world partake 
Of the blessings I receive 
At the twilight hour. 



VOICES 

Back to our northern land, o'er hill and fen. 
The springtide maiden hastens once again. 
Her warm breath wakes, her fingers deft employ, 
Each after each, the instruments of joy. 
Each string she tries, each tuneful pipe essays, 
And every song is still a song of praise. 
Our souls respond. We answer, voice for voice; 
Take up the strain and in God's love rejoice. 

69 



Yet listen, and, past nature's harp, we hear 
Ten thousand voices, speaking fine and clear, 
Ten thousand voices, sounding far and near, 
Until the soul seems but one quivering ear. 

Like her who, on the plains of sunny France, 
Saw forms of saint and angel in her trance 
And heard their voices, ever urging on 
Her soul to duty till her task was done; 
Calling at morn, at noon, at quiet eve. 
The peasant maid her lowly tasks to leave, 
To change the distaff for the banner white 
And save her country from the invader's might; 
Like her, we well may pause and listening stand, 
While words of warning, pleading and command 
Echo across the ages, till they wake 
Our souls to action for the Saviour's sake. 

The past is full of voices. The faint din 

Of clashing arms and hurtling javelin 

Mingles with shouts of victory and the cry 

Of those who flee, the moans of those who die. 

While words of hope, of courage and of cheer 

Fall with distinctness on the listening ear. 

Like the clear, joyous carol of a bird 

Above the city's sullen turmoil heard. 

And, hark! the angel's choral leads a song. 

That deepens ever as it flows along. 

Praising the Crucified. From age to age 

Its heavenly tone earth's loftiest strains engage. 

70 



Nation from nation, heart from heart receives 
The chant and its best music interweaves. 
The northern fervor and the southern fire 
To nobly set the sacred theme aspire. 
Music her organ, Poesy her lyre 
Calls to new life, to lead the swelling choir. 

Down through the centuries, the song of peace 
Touches the notes of discord and they cease; 
And, in their stead, a busy friendly hum. 
The harmony of labor 'gins to come. 
And Miriam's cymbals by the Red Sea wave 
Chime with the falling shackles of the slave — 

Like a full throated organ, that displays 

The beauty of the voice which it obeys, 

Whose deep, hushed harmonies accent the song 

And follow all its winding maze along; 

The solemn diapason of the past. 

With varied notes, profound, ecstatic, vast. 

Accompanies one voice which rules the whole, 

The voice of Jesus, speaking to the soul. 

That blessed voice our inmost spirits know. 

And all the past repeats its mandate, " go," 

" Go into all the world, go and proclaim 

The glories of your Lord's all-conquering name. 

Onward with courage! They alone are brave. 

Who lose themselves another's life to save. 

Whose love, like Orpheus' fabled magic lyre. 

Soothes savage hearts and wakens pure desire " - 

71 



This is the clarion word of yesterday, 

That calls us to the duty of to-day. 

An eager crowd of beggars at the gate, 

The voices of to-day our coming wait, 

Have waited long for us. With us was born 

Room for our life, a calling to adorn, 

Some noble task, to accomplish which v/e came, 

Some word to speak, some message to proclaim. 

While all the past conjures us not to waste 

The precious hour, the present bids us haste. 

Hasten, oh! hasten, for life's winter day 

Arises late, and fades at noon away. 

Our cherished theme is dropped, though half undone, 

Our sweetest song is only just begun; 

For Death, yA\o follows fast on silent wings. 

Snatches the harp and snaps the slender strings. 

Then haste, oh, haste, that to-morrow may, 

Since we have lived, be better than to-day. 

What is this sound, that fills my shrinking ears? 

As of a river sobbing, full of tears ; 

x\ bitter river that doth take its rise. 

Far from the sparkling streams of Paradise, 

In broken hearts, and whose sad waters flow 

From eyes that every change of sorrow know; 

An ancient river, all its streams begin 

At Eden's gate, whence, weeping for her sin. 

With streaming eyes, came forth our Mother, Eve, 

First to transgress and first, alas! to grieve. 

72 



Ever advancing with advancing time, 
Broadening and deepening, fed by every clime, 
River of tears! even in our glad to-day. 
We hear thy wailing waters with dismay. 
The undertone of every song of gladness. 
Thy sullen moan fills all our joy with sadness. 
Ah! who shall heal thy waters, v/ho transform, 
To gladsome praise, thy cry of grief and storm? 

'Tis God's own voice in answer that we hear, 

As erst He spake in Israel to the seer. 

'' Follow these bitter streams e'en to the spring 

And into it the salt of soundness fling, 

For I will heal these waters. Never more 

Shall death flow out of them as heretofore." 

Why falter we, reluctant to obey? 

Why deem that word a word of yesterday? 

The salt of grace, borne in the gospel cruse, 

God places in our feeble hands to use. 

He bids us cast it in those springs of woe. 

Sad human hearts, whence sin and sorrow flow. 

While He, Himself, our Saviour and our Lord, 

Shall heal the fountain with one gracious word. 

The bitter river, altered at its source. 

Sings on its way, a sparkling water-course. 

And, cleared of every stain of death and strife, 

Springs up a fountain of eternal life. 

Oh! the glad future, with its heavenly joy! 
The ecstatic music that its choirs employ 1 

73 



Shall we defraud it of one glorious strain, 

Or in its cadence leave one note of pain? 

Nay! let us teach earth's voices as they rise, 

To emulate celestial harmonies; 

Till mystic India teach the glad new song 

To waking China, unresponsive long; 

Till to each farthest isle, each coast remote, 

On every breeze, the echoing hymn shall float; 

Till every voice and every heart shall sing, 

And Jesus Christ be hailed creation's king; 

Then shall glad earth forget her ancient moan 

And lead the stars that sing around God's throne. 



THE SOLDIER BOY 

A song at the time of the Spanish War. Air 
" When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again." 

When Johnny comes marching up the street, 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
Then Jenny's heart begins to beat, 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
It beats so high with pride and joy, 
She needs must cheer her charming boy 
As he fights the fight for liberty, right, and home. 

A thousand battle-fields has war. 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
Peace has ten thousand conflicts more, 

Hurrah, hurrah! 

74 



And Jenny sees, with love and pride, 

Her Johnny march at Duty's side 

As he fights the fight for liberty, right, and home. 

For freedom's sake the fathers came. 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
The Pilgrim mothers did the same, 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
And, as in all the glorious past, 
So long as wrong and hardship last 
We will fight the fight of liberty, right, and home. 

Then Jenny give a ringing cheer, 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
For those who love their country dear, 

Hurrah, hurrah! 
What Johnny dare, that Johnny can; 
And victory crowns the honest man 
As he fights the fight for liberty, right, and home. 



OUR COUNTRY 

A national hymn. Air — "Jerusalem, the Golden.' 

GoD bless thee, native country. 
His smile, like sunshine, rest 

Upon thy hills and valleys. 

With peace and freedom blest; 

75 



Take freedom for thy banner 
And justice for thy sword, 

Cry joyfully hosannah, 
O favored of the Lord. 

God bless thee, native country, 

What danger can betide? 
The hand that ever led thee 
Will all thy future guide; 
After the ancient manner 

He'll show himself our God; 
Arise and shout hosannah, 
O favored of the Lord. 

God bless thee, native country. 

May ages but increase 
Thy beauty and thy glory. 
Thy heritage of peace; 
On hillside and savannah 

The wealth of joy is poured, 
Cry joyfully hosannah, 
O favored of the Lord. 

God bless thee, native country. 

Let nothing thee affright 
Long as thy children love thee 
And stand by truth and right; 
Then rest beneath thy banner 

And lean upon thy sword. 
Cry joyfulty hosannah, 
O favored of the Lord. 

76 



THE FADING LINE OF BLUE 

This poem has been widely read and greatly 
admired. The ''darling" and "my dear" was her 
oldest grandson. Written and first printed during the 
G. A. R. Encampment in Chicago in August, 1900. 

Come, darling, stand with me awhile, 

That through the window we may view, 
With eager eyes that weep and smile. 

Once more the fading line of blue; 
The fading line of blue, my dear. 

That once stretched wide and far. 
As though the sky were dropping near 
And every flag a star, my dear. 

And every flag a star. 

Ah! see how brave they march along — 

A drum, a riddled flag or two, 
A fife that shrills a battle song. 

Some ancient coats that once were blue. 
And some have empty sleeves, my dear, 

And some limp faint and slow; 
Come, greet them with a hearty cheer. 
Salute them as they go, my dear, 

Salute them as they go. 

For I have stood to see them pass 
In other, sadder days than these, 

17 



When blood was red upon the grass 
And bullets felled the forest trees, 

When dread clutched at my heart, my dear, 
Lest freedom's self might die. 

And to that last supremest fear 

They were God's best reply, my dear, 
They were God's best reply. 

For those you see below us there — 

Ah, scan their passing faces well — 
Have borne, each man, heroic share 

In war's dread cyclone; shot and shell 
Have proved their stainless faith, my dear, 

Their deathless courage, too; 
Salute them, love them, and revere; 
They bled for me and you, my dear, 

They bled for me and you. 

Though all 4he world is changed to-day, 

The sun shines bright, the flag floats free, 
And all the past is swept away 

By glory and prosperity. 
Your heart must not forget, my dear. 

All that you owe the heroes who 
Brought back full-handed peace and cheer. 
Salute the line of blue, my dear! 

The fading line of blue! 



78 



ECHOES FROM THE CIVIL WAR 

AND 
SOME OCCASIONAL POEMS 



BLOOD -ROOT 

On the hillside, out in the sun, 
Of all fair flowers the purest one. 
White as moonbeams, whiter than snow. 
Pure as dewdrops these beauties grow. 

Pluck them gently, lo! on your hand 
Crimson drops in a moment stand. 
Has the pure blossom then a heart. 
That from its wound the blood should start? 

Snow-white flower of a bloody root. 

Of our future be prophet mute. 

And through our land may sweet peace grow 

From war and blood a bloom of snow. 



AFTER THE BATTLE 

Hushed is the roll of the drum. 

And the musketry's rattle, 
Cannon and rifle are dumb; 
Passed is the battle. 
The vanquished are fled, and pursuit were in vain. 
For night's dusky veil wraps in mist all the plain. 
After the battle. 

8i 



The burning sun had set in blood; 
Up rose the bloody harvest moon; 
Small store of golden wheat she saw — 
Alas! her light came all too soon; 
As, wrapt in mist as in a shroud, 
She slowly climbed athwart the skies. 
She seemed, like some fierce fiend of war, 
To revel in the sacrifice. 

Alas! the yellow wheat 
Was threshed too soon, too soon by hostile feet 

The feathery, rustling corn 

Was trampled in the mire, 

And all the mire was red. 
What wonder that the sun went down in fire. 

And the moon rose in blood! 

The hillside golden-rod. 

And aster of the wood. 
Were scattered here in place of rosemary; 

Instead of organ tones 

Were sighings deep, and groans. 
Which prayed for morning where the wounded lay. 

But ah! th' unholy sight — 

Hide, hide, red moon, thy light! 
How canst thou look so bold, where man dares only 
guess? 

Are these the shining eyes 

Which looked for glory's prize? 
Are these the lips which little children loved to press? 

82 



Cover them, cover them, 

Bury the dead, 
Gently now gather them, 

Each to his bed; 
Fighting for liberty 

Passed they away, 
They shall be heroes, be 

Cowards who may. 

O Christ! O holy One! 
Help those who mourn for these 
To cry, " Thy will be done," 
When weeping on their knees. 
Oh, turn Thy loving face 
Toward Thy much-loved race; 

Thy tears, O Lord, have mingled with our own. 

The measure has been given, 
O Lord! dear Lord! and will it ne'er be filled? 

Must Earth still cry to Heaven, 
That brother's blood by brother yet is spilled? 

Help us to turn to Thee, 
In our great agony; 
Yea, e'en to thank Thee for the pain, 
That draws us unto Thee. 



83 



PEACE 

St. Louis, April, 1865. 

Still at the gate of Peace and all her joys, 
With two-edged sword which turneth every way, 
Stands War, an angel, though of dreadful mien: 
The future's light, thrown backward, makes his face 
like day. 

For she will come, and War shall lead her in. 
Well pleased that all his dreadful work is o'er. 
Mercy and Truth shall follow in her train. 
While Righteousness and Justice go before. 

Then come, sweet Peace: we wait to hear thy voice. 

Sweeter than mother singing to her child 

At hush of twilight; lo! our very hearts 

Are hushed to catch thy greeting soft and mild. 

Come, we will weave a crown for thee to wear. 
Thou shalt be queen, and crowned with white and 

blue; 
We know where rosy blossoms thickly grow, 
But thou with them shalt not have aught to do. 

Crimson violets, lilies bright. 
With a glow like sunset light, 

84 



Blood-red golden-rod that drips 
Life-drops from its slender tips, 
Gory asters, stain on stain, 
Ne^er to be washed white again. 
All the buds that spring can yield. 
All the flowers of summer field. 
All the autumn's lingering pride. 
Crushed and torn with man have died. 
These have been our lot too long. 
No more such in wreath or song; 
But cool and white. 
Airy and light. 
All manner of blossoms from vine and from spray. 

To strew in her way. 
The bride of the nation, the beauty, the queen. 

The angel, say rather. 
Who waves her white wings, where the war-cloud was 
seen 

So thickly to gather. 

Peace, peace! echo the bells. 
No cannon that day, — 
We have heard their dull thunder 
Roll above and shake under 
Long enough, long enough, — 
No cannon, we pray! 

Then come, sweet Peace, since Freedom bids thee 

come. 
The evil sounds which frighted thee away, 

8s 



The driver's lash, the sullen clank of chains, 
The wail of slaves, shall not disturb thy sway. 

For this is not, as when thy parting feet 

Were dipped in blood on Carolina's shore, 

A land where bondmen groaned and freemen quailed, 

But now we all are free forevermore. 

Come, therefore, in fresh robes, washed from the stams 
Which soiled their whiteness in the former days. 
While with exultant heart the nation waits 
To greet thy coming and to shout thy praise. 



THE AUTUMN OF PEACE 

The harvest-time has come again 
To orchard trees and golden plain. 
And woods of every gorgeous stain. 

The autumn moon looks down and sees. 
Upon a thousand misty leas. 
Wheat-stacks, like stranded argosies; 

She sees the curling vapor rise 
Like the white smoke of sacrifice 
Of first-fruits, to the kindly skies; 

She sees the late returning wain. 

Pressed 'neath the heavy sheaves of grain, 

And hears the reapers' jocund strain. 

86 



And over all the land is poured 
A quiet, in which men are heard 
Beating to pruning hooks the sword; 

A distant sound of forge and flail, 
Instead of battle shout and wail, 
God's blessing sweetens every gale. 

God's blessing all our being fills. 
And gently as the dew distills 
Upon the waiting vales and hills. 

The harvest-time has come again, 
But in each well-reaped field and glen 
The harvest has been jruit, not men. 

The crimson on the forest leaves 

Is not the dropping from life's eaves; 

No^blood is sprinkled on the sheaves. 

Ah! now we feel that peace of yore 
Has folded her white wings once more. 
Whiter and purer than before. 

For though she came ere spring had fled, 
We, since our hearts so deeply bled. 
Forgot her, weepiilg for our dead. 

Come down into our hearts, O peace. 
And let thy blessed reign increase. 
Till war and death forever cease. 

87 



A DIRGE OF SLAVERY 

I HEARD a sullen, hollow sound, 
Come from the regions under ground, 

Where the dead nations dwell; 
The voice of all that murderous clan, 
Who plot against the soul of man. 

To drag him down to H^ll. 

^' Hast thou become as we,'' it cried, 
'' Cast from thy fastnesses of pride. 

And branded for thy lies? 
The cloak of light is rent away. 
Which made thee seem the child of day, 

Th' apostle of the skies. 

^' How long thy reign! beginning when 
Nimrod, the first who hunted men. 

Brought on the iron age. 
Thy robes are crimson with the blood 
Of every nation since the flood. 

The slain of thy fell rage. 

" Curses and groans and bitter tears 
Have been thy food through countless years, 

Sweet morsels for thy maw; 
Thy spell has ever broken through, 

88 



And trespassed on th' elysium new, 
Which the old prophet saw. 

^^ For to that happy-fated land 
Where flying freedom took her stand 

And keeps the world at bay, 
Thy slimy coil insidious crept. 
And tightening while the nation slept, 

Half choked its life away. 

^^ Then murder, lust, oppression, pride. 
Thy banner hailed on every side. 

And reveled at their ease. 
Beneath the shadow of thy shield. 
We, well protected and concealed. 

Drained pleasure to the lees. 

" Then war and all her hungry train 

Swept o'er the land that thou might'st reign, 

And quench thy thirst for blood. 
Thy victory seemed so near and sure; 
Alas! such wrong cannot endure, 

Since there is still a God. 

^' And thou art falPn and driven back 
To those wild tribes whose desert track 

Is white with dead men's bones. 
The fetters of the rescued slave 
Are laid as trophies on his grave 

Who hushed the bondman's groans. 

89 



" Lie down with us in black despair; 
Like wounded beasts we seek our lair, 

And gnash our teeth in pain:" 
Then, lifting up a horrid cry, 
They shook their chains in agony, 

Till the Pit rang amain. 



Written for, and sung at, the dedication of Colby 
Hall of Newton Theological Institution, in 1866. 

Eternal Wisdom, who dost give 
The skilful hand, the ready mind, 

Accept the offering that we bring, — 
A thousand gifts in one combined. 

Accept these halls; with them receive 

The hard-earned mite, the earnest prayer, 

The love of learning and of truth. 
The love for Thee; for all are there. 

May Science here securely dwell. 

Firm as the granite hills around! 
Her hand upon God's Word, her brow 

With rays of heavenly lustre crowned. 

Eternal Truth, Lord Jesus Christ! 

Here let Thy light and glory shine; 
Let every mind and every heart. 

With all we know and are, be Thine. 



90 



Written in 1902, for Arbor Day, at Morgan Park,. 
111., when trees were planted between the Baptist Meet- 
ing House and the Home for Missionaries' Children. 

To the life-giving breeze 

Stretch forth your boughs, ye trees, 

'Mid light and song. 
Strike deep your roots below, 
Wide your green shadows throw, 
Toward the glad heavens grow, 

Sturdy and strong. 

On thee, fair Home of love. 
May blessings from above 

Descend in showers. 
That thy strong sons may stand 
Like palms in many a land. 
Thy daughters be a band 

Of Hly flowers. 

Thou, too, O church, most dear. 
Flourish immortal here. 

Grounded in love; 
Watered by grace divine. 
Fed by the heavenly Vine, 
And each ripe fruit of thine 

Garnered above. 



91 



Read at the celebration of Aunt Lizzie Aiken's 
seventieth birthday. Aunt Lizzie was born in Auburn, 
N. Y., spent her girlhood in Vermont and her early- 
married life in Western Illinois. She was an army 
nurse during the Civil War and a church missionary 
in Chicago for many years. 

As one, who, weary on a rugged height. 
Pauses to rest, e'en with the goal in sight. 
And fondly turns to view the landscape wide, 
The rushing stream, the rocky mountain side, 
The dreary waste, the valley's welcome sod. 
All the long road his hurrying foot has trod. 
While hope and memory meet in fond embrace, 
And shed a double brightness o'er the place; 
So, as the ghding of the silver spheres 
Brings her we love the boon of seventy years. 
We, like the foot-sore pilgrim, would again 
Traverse in thought her three-score years and ten. 

At the horizon 'gainst the sky she sees 

Her lovely birthplace gleaming through the trees. 

Girdled like Ceres, with the golden grain, 

^^ Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain." 

Here, where the light first cheered her infant eyes. 

She saw the Sun of Righteousness arise. 

Here learned that song of trust, divinely given, 

Which makes the road of life the way to heaven. 

And now, Ascutney's cloud-flecked slopes are seen, 
And mountain pastures vie with meadows green, 

92 



New England skies bend over pure and clear, 

The song of many birds enchants the ear, 

The lambs are frisking in the valley wide, 

The breath of flowers fills all the country side. 

In this fair home, 'mid pleasures ever new. 

Close to her mother's heart the maiden grew. 

From that blest haven, from her father's side, 

Out to the restless world she passed, a bride. 

Image of heaven! Fair haunt of girlhood's years! 

The eyes that greet you, smile through all their tears. d 

Here, where the moon views all the prairie wide, 
And scarce a leaf can in the shadow hide. 
Bordered with bloom and carpeted with sod. 
She finds a home fresh from the hand of God. 
As lonely as a ship far out at sea. 
Her little house stands on the boundless lea; 
Here in the silence, often in the dust, 
She learns anew her pilgrim song of trust. 
Draw we a veil across the weary years 
Sacred to sorrow and a mother's tears. 
As one by one, from off her tender breast. 
She lays her babes in Jesus' arms to rest; 
As one by one her every staff and stay 
In swirling floods of grief is swept away. 
Till, turning full of anguish from the door. 
She bids her home farewell, forevermore. 

Down in yon valley, see the yellow wheat 
Threshed all too soon, too soon by hostile feet; 

93 



See the sun set, and the moon rise, in blood; 
Hear from the ground, cry out the sanguine flood. 
Valley of slaughter! Shall a woman's path 
Lead through the myriad horrors of God's wrath? 
Let those who saw her, answer why she came, 
Leaning on Christ and blessing in His name. 
Bringing a smile to brows that frowned with pain, 
Soothing the sleepless couch, the fevered brain, 
Feeding the hungry; by the dying bed 
Telling of Him who liveth and was dead. 
When, as the ghastly night came sad and dim. 
She, 'mid the wounded, sang her evening hymn, 
They knew no angel sent from God could be 
So good, so dear, so heavenly kind as she. 

And we have known her too. For many a* day 
Her path and ours have run the self-same way. 
We know her tireless steps to help the poor. 
Her zeal to do, her patience to endure. 
Her love for those who, outcast and alone. 
She fain would save and cherish as her own. 
For, like a fountain, every day she lives, 
Freely receiving, freely, too, she gives. 

Three-score and ten! Then she we love is old; 
Gone is her silver youth, her years of gold. 
Long has she toiled. Our hearts within us bum, 
For all her goodness to make some return. 
Full well we know that her dear Lord one day 
Will take her home, to be with Him for aye. 

94 



Many are waiting by the gate, to fly 

And greet her fondly as she passes by. 

We also greet her. Long may it be ours 

To strew her pathway with love's fairest flowers. 



95 



POEMS DISTINCTIVELY 
CHRISTIAN 



WHAT SHALL I RENDER UNTO THE LORD? 

I HAVE a treasure fairer 

Than pearls beneath the sea, 

Than all the gems of sunlit lands: 
I bring it, Lord, to Thee. 

My costly gift to Thee I bring 

So gladly for Thy part; 

Take it for Thine. This precious thing 
Is my heart. 

I have a treasure sweeter 

Than the treasures of the bee, 

Than all the blooms of wood or field: 
I bring it, Lord, to Thee. 

White clouds of incense that aspire 

All earthly clouds above, 

A censer full of perfumed fire 
Is my love. 

I have a treasure nobler. 

More unsubdued and free 
Than the wild unfurrowed mountain: 

I bring it. Lord, to Thee. 
I place in Thy controlling hand 
This power of good or ill: 
Wield Thou my sceptre; take command 

Of my will. ' 

99 



I have a treasure deathless 

As is eternity, 
OutHving sun, and moon, and star: 

I bring it. Lord, to Thee. 
I would not offer Thee a part, 
But, joyful, give the whole; 
My love, my will, my life, my heart, 
And my soul. 

How poor is all my treasure. 

Lord, when compared with Thee, 

And all the wealth of pitying love 
Thou hast bestowed on me! 

And yet around my offerings may 

A light supernal shine. 

Since when Thou dost accept them, they 
All are Thine. 



ONLY ONE TALENT 

" Thine handmaid hath not anything in the house, 
save a pot of oil." — H Kings iv, 2. 

Oh, what am I, that you should wait 

Thus at my humble door. 
For how can I, e'en though you die, 

Divide my scanty store? 
My nights are full of anxious care, 

My days are hard with toil. 

100 



Riches or treasure have I none, 
Except my pot of oil. 

Why will you gaze, and break my heart 

With wistful looks and sad? 
To feed your hungry souls with bread 

Would make me more than glad. 
Your griefs I know, your bitter wrongs 

Cause my quick blood to boil; 
But I have naught to save or share 

Except my pot of oil. 

It came to me from One who felt 

Your woes as well as mine; 
But if I pour it out for you 

How shall my own lamp shine? 
I watch it closely day by day, 

Lest it should change or spoil. 
Why will your eyes demand of me 

My precious pot of oil? 

And yet — it was bestowed on me; 

Perchance, if I should give, 
I too might read the mystery 

That bids us die to live; 
I too might find some sunny spot 

'Mid all this grief and moil. 
If I should fill your empty jars, 

And drain my pot of oil. 

lOI 



Then bring them here, of every size, 

And bring me not a few. 
Long as it lasts, my treasured store 

I'll share with each of you. 
Long as it lasts! It does not stay! 

The longer that I toil 
To empty it, the fuller grows 

My flowing pot of oil. 

" Pour " was the word the Master spake, 

"Till every jar overflows; 
The treasure that is hidden wastes, 

He gains, who all bestows. 
Long as an empty vessel waits. 

Fear not! thyself despoil. 
Enough for thee, enough for all 

Is in thy pot of oil." 



TRUST IN THE UNSEEN 

The varied beauties of Thy face. 
It was not ours to see, 
O Man of men, O God on earth, . 
Blest from eternity. 

When Thou didst raise the sleeping dead, 
And wake the deadened soul, 
We did not hear Thy quickening voice 
Speak flesh and spirit whole. 

102 



Yet we have felt that mighty word, 
Have known the pardoning smile 
Beaming upon us from the skies, 
Though hidden for awhile; 

As, in the darkness of the night, 
Waking with sudden fear. 
The child puts forth its helpless hand 
To feel its mother near; 

It does not need to hear her voice. 
It does not care to see. 
But, resting on her loving arm. 
Sleeps in security. 

So though we cannot see Thee, Lord, 
We rest upon Thy love. 
Content in darkness as in light 
Thy faithfulness to prove. 



GOOD -NIGHT 

A LULLABY 

Good-night, dear child, good-night; 

Sleep in thy little bed. 
So soft, so lily white, 

Beneath thy golden head; 
Good-night. 

103 



Like sunshine on a flower, 

Thy tresses stray adown 
The pillow in a shower, 

And gild thy snowy gown; 
Good-night. 

Feet, restless as the rain, 

Your patter dies away 
Till morning wakes again, 

And calls you out to play; 
Good-night. 

Good-night, dear child, good-night; 

Breathed is thy evening prayer; 
Thy watch of angels bright 

Comes through the silent air; 
Good-night. 

We yield thee to their care. 

Until the shadows flee. 
Content that they should share 

In our felicity; 
Good-night. 

SORROW 

When from His Father's heart of love, 
And from His Father's throne. 
The blessed Saviour stooped to make 
Our grief and tears His own, 

104 



Though myriad angels with Him came 
In pomp of heavenly state, 
He turned aside to take the hand 
Of Sorrow at the gate. 

She walked beside him all the way, 
She led His weary feet 
From Bethlehem till Calvary 
Saw sacrifice complete. 

She walked with Him, to her He gave 
Comforts to soothe her soul; 
He wiped her tears, her broken heart 
His riven heart made whole. 



SELF- SURRENDER 

Lord, I give myself to Thee, 
Thou art my hope and trust. 

Since Thou hast stooped from heaven to me, 
And raised me from the dust. 

1 leave my lifelong hopes and fears, 
My will I cast aside, 

I fain would have no will but Thine, 
Thou who for me hast died. 

My selfish will and slavish fear 
Have held me captive long; 

105 



Deliver me from both, O Lord, 
Since I to Thee belong. 

And lead me like a little child, 
I cannot go alone, 
I fall and stumble by the way. 
My every hymn a groan. 

Now make me Thine, entirely Thine; 
I cast myself on Thee, 
I long to run the heavenly way, 
I faint Thy face to see. 



I AM THINE 

Lord Jesus, I am Thine, 
No more my soul can fear. 
Thy holy will is mine. 
Thy presence ever near. 
E'en in the darkest night, 
Light in Thy light I see; 
I bless Thee for the sight, 
I fix mine eyes on Thee. 

Choose Thou mine onward way. 
Oh, lead me by the hand; 
So will I trust alway, 
Nor seek to understand. 
Thou who dost see the end, 

1 06 



Plan Thou my life for me. 
My Master and my Friend, 
Shall I not lean on Thee! 

If of the cup of tears 

I drink, it once was Thine; 

Bless it and it appears 

A sacrament divine. 

And if, by Thy command, 

On sorrow I am fed. 

It is Thy pierced hand 

That breaks the bitter bread. 

Thus, through the joy and pain 
Of my brief earthly day, 
Lord Jesus, I would fain 
Walk with Thee all the way; 
Walk with Thee without fear, 
Yea, closer to Thy side. 
When death's dark gates appear. 
Oh, Living One who died. 

According to Thy word 
Soon shall Thy servant be. 
My Master and my God, 
In Paradise with Thee. 
Fair mansions of Thy grace. 
Life's bright, unfading shore! 
There shall I see Thy face. 
Amen, forevermore. 

107 



APPREHENDED OF CHRIST JESUS" 

When I resigned my will to Thine, 

Jesus, there came at last 
The quiet of a summer sea. 

Whose storms are past. 

No more, no more will I contend, 

But, knowing I am Thine, 
I lay me down to rest within 
Thy hand divine. 

Like some wild bird I struggled long 

To free me from Thy hold. 
But now content, in perfect peace 
My wings I fold. 

Here shall my rest forever be: 
Too well Thy love I know 
To fear the hand that bled for me 
Would let me go. 

^^THE LIVING TEMPLE'' 

In souls redeemed. Thou, Lord, canst see 
A costly temple raised to Thee; 
Not built by hands, but by that word 
Which unborn light responsive heard. 

io8 



The corner-stone, that precious One 
Rejected once, Thy holy Son; 
All the foundations are the same, 
His wondrous work. His wondrous name. 

Slowly as islands from the deeps. 
The unfinished structure upward creeps; 
Each stone of faith, each gem of grace 
Is laid in its appointed place. 

But with what shoutings shall the last, 
The topmost be in heaven made fast; 
That pure white stone, whose secret name 
Shall light the temple as a flame. 

Hallowed and pure through Jesus' blood, 
The Father shall pronounce it good, 
And in His righteousness secure, 
Its wall shall stand, its gates endure. 

GOLDEN BOWLS 

GoD^s service maketh all things great: 

To Him there's nothing small. 
A thousand lives we cannot see. 
Each within each; how wondrously 
He careth for them all. 

So for His holy house He gave 
A pattern fair of old; 

109 



Not only for the cherubim, 
Or laver with its lily brim, 
But for the bowls of gold. 

Anointing oil in these should glow. 

In these the purple wine; 
The first fruits of the ripening field. 
And sacrificial blood that sealed 

A covenant divine. 

Symbols of human life were they. 

Ever before the Lord, 
Of lowly labors manifold, 
These golden vessels formed to hold 

Man's offering to God. 

Humble and menial was their place. 

And so perchance is mine; 
Yet is the chalice of my days 
An altar bowl for work and praise, 
My life a thought divine. 



GOD OUR STRENGTH 

Drav^ me to Thee, my God; 

Although I stray, 
My longing eyes pursue 

The narrow way. 

no 



My stumbling feet will fail, 
The path is steep; 

But in the King's highway 
I will not weep. 

Draw me to Thee, my God, 

Else shall I fall; 
'Tis only by Thine aid 

I climb at all. 

Yet while Thy promise stands, 

Why should not I, 
With all Thy conquering hosts, 

Victory cry? 



ILLUMINATE THE CROSS 

Hushed was the vast cathedral. 

The shadows gathered gray. 
The footsteps of the verger 

In echoes died away. 

East the great cross stood, shrouded 
In veils of falling gloom. 

And westward the rose window 
Showed neither light nor bloom. 

Until the sun, slow sinking. 
Just touched its rim with light, 

III 



And one by one its jewels 
Of color brought to sight. 

Far down the shadowy chancel, 
Athwart the shadowy nave, 

The rays, a tangled rainbow. 
Touched wall and architrave. 

Then, reaching like a finger 
The shadowy aisle across, 

They longest rest and linger 
T' illuminate the cross. 



Shine through us. Sun of Glory! 

Though now as dark as night. 
The jewels of our window 

Will answer to Thy light. 

The emerald of courage. 

And hope's own sapphire ray, 

Shall waken from their darkness 
Thy summons to obey. 

The jasper and the jacinth, 
The topaz' golden blaze. 

The amethyst's deep rapture 
Shall kindle in thy rays. 

112 



And from the very center, 
The whole dark world across, 

Shall love's own burning ruby 
Illuminate the cross. 

Shine through us. Sun of Glory! 

The world is very drear, 
In shadow sit the nations. 

The end is drawing near. 

And e'en our light is hidden. 
Our beauty none can see, 

We too dwell in the darkness 
Unless we shine in Thee. 

In vain our boasted vantage. 
Our gain is but our loss. 

Unless our bright rose-windows 
Illuminate the cross. 



LOVEST TO THE END 

" Having loved his own that were in the world, 
he loved them unto the end." — John xiii, i, New Ver. 

Blest Saviour, who didst love thine own. 
Each doubting heart, each wavering friend, 
Who left Thee, grieved, to die alone, 
Thou lovedst to the end. 

113 



Thy heart divine, with love replete, 
On them its sweetness did expend; 
Their love was cold and incomplete, 
Thou lovedst to the end. 

And we, who through their word believe, 
Unto our weakness condescend, 
Let us this precious truth receive. 
Thou lovest to the end. 

Our trials Thou dost make Thine own. 
Our doubting souls dost comprehend. 
For all our sins Thou didst atone. 
Thou lovest to the end. 

All other love may pass away. 
All other friends we may offend. 
All other bliss lapse in dismay. 
Thou lovest to the end. 

Trial and sorrow bring Thee near. 
Death only leads us to our Friend, 
Not only now, not only here. 
Thou lovest to the end. 

But when, our earthly wanderings past. 
To heaven, to Thee we shall ascend, 
Long as eternity may last 
Thou lovest to the end. 

114 



Oh, fill us with the love of God, 
Help us to know and comprehend 
The depths of that most precious word, 
Thou lovest to the end. 



" HE SHALL CARRY THE LAMBS 
IN HIS BOSOM'' 

The tender shepherd leads the sheep, 
And watches them with care; 
But in his bosom lie the lambs. 
At rest and quiet there. 

They look into his face, they hear 
The beatings of his heart, — 
What danger then can make them fear 
The sharpness of its dart? 

Before the influence of his eye 
Their foes all turn and flee. 
He is secure from earth and hell 
Who trusts, O Lord, in Thee. 

To death itself, with all its waves. 
With songs and smiles they come. 
They trust Thy arms to bear them through 
Rejoicing to their home. 



Oh, Jesus, what so blessed lot 
Can human heart conceive, 

115 



As, safely in Thy bosom borne, 
To quietly believe. 

To strive no more for holiness 
That is apart from Thee; 
To rest and trust; to only live 
Where we Thy face can see. 

Oh, happy is the little child. 
More blest the childlike faith. 
Which, in the sunshine of God's smile, 
Fears neither life nor death. 



THE HEAVENLY GATES 

Rev. iii, 12; xxi, 25. 

The pearly gates stand open. 

Each hinge of beaten gold 
Hides in its heart, forever, 

A melody untold. 
Since for the King of Glory, 

Returning to His throne. 
The two-leaved doors flew open. 

Closed have they been to none. 

The pearly gates stand open. 

Through the eternal day. 
The nations of the ransomed 

Throng up the shining way. 

116 



No night can cast the shadow 

Of danger and of fear, 
God is their sun forever 

Through all the heavenly year. 

The pearly gates stand open; 

But those who once pass through, 
Their wanderings in the desert 

Shall not commence anew. 
They feel no inward longing 

Their footsteps to retrace, 
Nor cast one look behind them 

Who gaze on Jesus' face. 

The heavenly gates stand open. 

What is it keeps them out. 
That weary crowd of wallers 

Who stand and weep without? 
What strange mysterious safeguard 

Protects the open door. 
That not one guilty footstep 

Has stained the crystal floor? 

Ah! soul, why wonder further? 

Turn but one glance within. 
Thou hast the dreadful secret 

Hid in thy heart of sin. 
That heart which hates its Saviour, 

And spurns his love untold. 
Would dread the pearly portal 

And shun the streets of gold. 

117 



HABAKKUK, CHAPTER III 

God came from Teman in His strength, 
And j&lled the heavens with light; 
Holy and Just, earth sang His praise, 
And blessed His glory bright. 

Holding all power within His hand, 
And death beneath His feet, 
He stood, unto each kingdom proud 
Its just desert to mete. 

I saw the heathen tents afar. 
Trembling with awful dread. 
The hills were bowed before His way, 
The lasting mountains fled. 

The deep, that saw Thy kingly train. 
Uttered a dreadful cry. 
And, lifting up its thousand hands, 
Adored Thy majesty. 

The sun and moon Thy spear eclipsed, 
Thy bow was naked made; 
What wonder that the nations were 
At Thy great might afraid! 

For the salvation of Thine own. 
Thou comest forth, O Lord, 

ii8 



With indignation and with wrath, 
Thou showest Thyself God. 

Although the vine should fail to bloom, 
The land with famine groan, 
Yet will I joy in God, my strength. 
Who battles for his own. 



CHRIST'S SACRIFICE 

My sacrifice is slain; 

The holy Lamb of God, 

To expiate my sin. 

Pours forth His saving blood; 
What pains He bore, no tongue can tell. 
To save my soul from death and hell. 

Each agonizing sigh. 

Each deep, heartrending groan 

Echoes from Calvary 

Wherever sin is known; 
Through every heart's black misery 
That echo cries, " For thee, for thee." 

The thorns upon his brow 

Are but the symbol dim 

Of deadly grief and throe 

Now lacerating him; 
That holy soul by woes is torn 
That do not heed the outward thorn. 

119 



Behold Him, O my soul, 
Look up to Him and live, 
He dies to make thee whole. 
He weeps lest thou shouldst grieve; 
Nay, hide thy face, with yonder sun. 
From the foul deed which thou hast done. 

Ah, what a cruel strife 
Now fills my wretched heart! 
I came to thee for life. 
Shame cries aloud, depart; 
Ah, whither, v/hither can I flee. 
My Saviour — victim — leaving Thee? 

Nay, weary soul, be still. 

Shall such surpassing love 

The mission not fulfil 

That brought it from above? 
Accept the boon of Calvary, 
And grateful cry, '^ For me, — for me." 



EASTER MISSIONARY HYMN 

This was set to music by W. H. Dean. 

Lo! Christ the Lord is risen. 
Our Life, our Righteousness; 
He burst the grave's dark prison, 
He came the world to bless; 

120 



Let us who see His glory, 
So full of truth and grace, 
Declare the heavenly story 
Of peace, in every place. 

To-day the love of Jesus 

In heavenly courts is sung; 

To-day the name of Jesus 

Is praised in every tongue; 

" From Greenland's icy mountains " 

To " India's coral strand," 

The gospePs healing fountain 

Is known in every land. 

Awake, long promised morning. 
Glad Easter sun, arise; 
Illumine by thy dawning 
The darkness of earth's skies; 
Come, Hope of every nation, 
Thy light and life impart. 
Come, Author of Salvation, 
And dwell in every heart. 



SHALL I BE THERE? 

When the angels' touch of fire 
Lights the dead world's funeral pyre. 
And the red flames' baleful light 
Cuts the blackness of the night, 

121 



In more black despair, 
Shall my soul be there? 

When the weary faithful feet, 
Christ shall come half-way to greet, 
When the angels fly to bring 
All His saints to meet their King, 

Lord, and can I dare 

Hope I may be there? 

When the conquering armies come, 
White-robed, palm-crowned victors, home, 
When the heavenly gates unfold. 
And gleam through the streets of gold, 

All their joys to share. 

Shall I too be there? 

When before His Father's face 
Stands the Saviour, full of grace, 
Takes the joy for which He came, 
Calls His ransomed ones by name, 

Jesus, hear my prayer, 

Grant I may be there. 



THE SMITTEN ROCK 

Smitten of God for us! 
Thirsting and scorched we lay, 
The water all was gone 
And sand filled up the way; 

122 



'Twas then the smitten rock flowed o'er, 
We drank and lived to thirst no more. 

Along the weary road, 

That leads to Canaan's hills, 

The waters from the rock 

Flow on in deepening rills; 

We drink, refreshed we onward press, 

And sing e'en in the wilderness. 

The very desert blooms 
And blossoms as the rose, 
The thorny shrub drops balm 
Where'er this water flows; 
Whoever will may drink and know 
All that is found of heaven below. 

And on, forever on 

The healing river flows. 

The fissure in the rock 

No mortal power can close. 

Until that stream from 'neath God's throne 

It joins, and lo! the two are one. 



123 



GOD'S CHILD THROUGH REDEMPTION 

By Thy precious blood, dear Jesus, 

Washed and reconciled, 
Let me be Thy heavenly Father's 

True and loving child. 

Thou didst come to seek and save me. 

Though so far astray; 
Thorns and mockings, death and sorrow 

Filling all the way. 

Thou didst seek me still unwearied. 

Till, upon the rood, 
On Thy hands my name was written 

In redeeming blood. 

With that blood, Thy name, blest Saviour, 

Write upon my heart; 
That I may be Thine, forever 

With Thee where Thou art. 



THE HAPPY DAY 

Oh, the joyful, happy day! 
When the clouds all roll away, 
And to our enraptured eyes, 
Like a star, shall Zion rise. 

124 



Oh, the joyful, happy day! 
When our feet, no more to stray, 
Washed from earthly dust and sin 
Through her gates of pearl pass in. 

Oh, the joyful, happy day! 
When, in beautiful array, 
They embrace us, whom our tears 
Called for through the weary years. 

Oh, the joyful, happy day! 
Whose glad morning breaks for aye; 
Then we'll turn and look our last 
On a night forever past. 



GIVING MY HEART 

Jesus, take my sinful heart, 
Take it all with sin defiled. 
Full of pain and sorrow's smart. 
Doubting fear, foreboding wild. 

'Tis, alas! no gift for Thee, 
Pure and holy as Thou art, 
But Thou askest it of me, 
Askest nothing but my heart. 

125 



All the wealth of earth is Thine, 
Thine the oceans and the hills, 
Thought and fancy cannot climb 
To the height Thy fullness fills. 

Still, O Lord, with fond desire 
Thou dost crave Thy creature's love; 
And Thy pity's holy fire 
Burns all other flames above. 

Take then, Lord, my guilty soul. 

Take my sin-cursed body, too; 

Save them, cleanse them, make them whole, 

New create them through and through. 

Dare I beg some humble part 
Of Thy matchless love, from Thee? 
Ah! Thou ne'er hadst wished my heart 
If Thou hadst not first loved me. 



GOD -ATTUNED 

We thank Thee, we love Thee, O Lord, 
We praise Thy most glorious name. 
We joy in the thought of Thy grace. 
From ages to ages the same. 

Oh, that Thou wouldst touch all our tongues, 
And teach them to worthily sing; 

126 



Oh, that Thou wouldst tune all our hearts, 
And tighten each sin-loosened string. 

Then, then shall we utter Thy praise, 
When death blows this dust once away. 
That each dulcet stop may breathe forth 
The music which slumbers to-day. 

Then, then shall the angels rejoice, 
Complete be the heavenly song. 
When the blood-bought, the ransomed shall add 
The strain which was wanting so long. 



THE FATHER'S WELCOME 

Thy Father's door stands open. 
O wanderer, return. 
Accept the joyful token. 
His grace and pity learn. 

Thy Father's heart is ready 
To greet thee and forgive; 
Ah! hear the invitation, 
'' Fly unto me and live." 

Thy Father's house is open, 
He waiteth at the door. 
He has looked long to see thee. 
He calls thee o'er and o'er. 

127 



Arise and haste to meet Him, 
As He comes thee to greet, 
Cast all thy sin and sorrow, 
Thyself cast, at His feet. 

Thy Father will receive thee; 
On His forgiving breast, 
Thy guilt all left behind thee. 
Thou shalt forever rest. 



DELIVERANCE FROM SIN 

I AM weary of my sin; 
Whither, whither shall I flee? 
Thou canst make me clean within. 
Saviour, I will fly to Thee. 

I would hide me in Thy breast. 
From this fierce, this tireless foe; 
I would come to Thee for rest; 
Hold me. Lord, nor let me go. 

Though I put my hand in Thine, 
Walking in the narrow way. 
Though I see Thy glory shine. 
Sin still haunts me night and day. 

It is not enough, O Lord, 

That Thou takest away my guilt; 

128 



Speak one saving, freeing word, 
Thou whose blood for me was spilt. 

Take away the sin I hate. 
Let me conquer though I die; 
Nothing is for Thee too great, 
Thou canst free, canst purify. 

Give me Thy sufficient grace. 
Which can make me clean within, 
Let me look upon Thy face. 
See Thy smile and cease to sin. 



THE SABBATH 

Sweet Sabbath, all thy hours of prayer 
And hallowed praise are past; 
With what a wistful, lingering heart, 
I part from thee at last. 

Guest from the heavenly land of peace. 
Thou comest to hush our strife; 
One day in seven we walk with thee 
The blessed way of life. 

And now to heaven thou dost return 
The record sad to bear 
Of heartless songs, of service vain. 
Of vacant, soulless prayer. 

^ 129 



For in our hearts the altar fire 
Burns down to ashes soon; 
The joy of morning, like the dew, 
Is dried away by noon. 

We strive to spend one day with God, 
But, through the half shut door. 
The whispering world attracts our thoughts, 
And our short heaven is o'er. 

Oh, shall it ever be that this 
Sad truth must be confessed. 
That we who say we love our God, 
Still love ourselves the best? 

Sweet Sabbath, injured guest, farewell. 
Yet since thou must depart. 
Drop one rich blessing from thy wing 
Deep down into my heart. 

And let, through every coming day 
Until thy glad return. 
Some thought of thee and heaven make 
My heart within me burn. 

JESUS ADORED 

Jesus, my soul adores Thee 
And loves Thee for Thy grace. 
Which shines, the Father's glory, 
Revealed in Thy dear face. 

130 



Here at Thy Cross of Anguish 
I lay my burdens down; 
Thou takest all my sorrows 
And givest instead a crown. 

A crown of joy and gladness, 
Oh, happiness complete! 
I cannot wait till heaven, 
To cast it at Thy feet. 

Those blessed feet, once pierced, 
I would I had been there. 
With grateful tears to bathe them, 
And wipe them with my hair. 

Oh, holy face of Jesus, 
Disfigured once for me. 
Thou art the sun of glory, 
Light of eternity. 

I bless Thee, Christ and Saviour, 
I love Thee for Thy love, 
I prize Thy smile and favor 
All other joys above. 



131 



FOR BAPTISM 

Thou holy Lamb of God, 

It is Thy flowing blood, 
Poured out for me, that makes me clean. 

In Thee, in Thee I claim. 

And solely through Thy name, 
A heart in which no stain is seen. 

Even the Father's eye 

No longer can espy 
Aught that its purity offends. 

He looks upon Thy face, 

Its beauty and its grace 
He sees reflected in Thy friends. 

And now, with humble love. 

My outward act would prove 
And seal the purchase Thou hast made. 

Where I Thy footsteps see, 

I would most joyfully 
Obey, e'en as my Lord obeyed. 

Oh, what a joy it is. 
What ecstasy, what bliss. 
To tread the path which Thou hast trod, 
Jesus, to follow Thee 

132 



To all eternity, 
To die to sin, to live to God. 

Hold me and keep me true, 

Whatever I think or do; 
'Tis only in Thy strength I stand. 

My comfort and my bliss, 

My only safeguard is 
Thy pardoning love. Thy helping hand. 



OUR SAVIOUR-KING 

Of Jesus, our Saviour, we joyfully sing, 
And humbly adore Him, our Ruler and King. 
Oh, happy the land that submits to His reign; 
His service is freedom; He breaks every chain. 

Refrain — 

Oh, sing of our Saviour-King, 
Sing of our Saviour-King, 
Sing of our Saviour-King, 
Mighty to save. 

Oh, crown Him with praises, the friend of the weak; 
He sends forth His servants, the erring to seek; 
No soul He created shall e'er be forgot. 
No creature so poor that the Lord knows him not. 

Though seated in glory, the Lamb on the throne 
Is with us forever to succor His own; 

133 



His power, His goodness shall carry clear through 
The work He has chosen His children to do. 

Oh, trust in His mercy, take hold on His strength; 
He has led us thus far, we shall triumph at length 
And the land that we love, from sea unto sea, 
The land of Immanuel, our Saviour, shall be. 



DAY OF LIGHT AND GLADNESS 

Tune — "Vesper Hymns'' — 7's and 8's. 

Hail, blest day of light and gladness 
Which our eyes with joy behold — 

Darkest clouds of sin and sadness 
Flee before thy rising gold. 

See, the mountain tops are gleaming 
And the valleys catch the glow; 

Soon the blessed sunlight streaming 
Shall the whole dark earth overflow. 

Hasten, hasten in thy glory 
Where the tribes in shadow lie, 

Until death itself, grown hoary, 
From excess of light shall die. . 



134 



■'^ 



LIGHT -HOUSE LAMPS 

Air — "He Leadeth Me" 

Help us 'mid life's wild waves to shine 
Bright light-house lamps o'er rock and brine, 
To guide the wand'rers on that sea 
To a safe harbor, Lord, in Thee. 

Refrain — 

To shine for Thee, to shine for Thee, 
Help us, O Lord, to shine for Thee. 
Lights in the world we fain would be. 
Help us, O Lord, to shine for Thee. 

Help us on time's dark hills to blaze 
Strong beacon-fires with steadfast rays. 
To lead the lost and erring right. 
To urge the lingering to the fight. 

Help us on every darksome way 
To hold the gathering shades at bay. 
Like sunbeams clear, to light the road 
That leads to happiness and God. 

Help us, O God, each in his place. 
Fed by the sacred oil of grace. 
Like temple lamps forever bright. 
To burn before Thee day and night. 

135 



THE GOSPEL TRIUMPHANT 

Tune — ''Hark, Ten Thousand Harps and Voices." 

Jesus, hail! the King of Glory, 

Earth rejoices in Thy sway; 
Heathen nations hear Thy story, 

Heathen darkness yields to day. 

Every idol falls before Thee, 

Seeks the night from whence it came, 

While ten thousand souls adore Thee, 
Trophies of Thy saving name. 

Zion, wake, and hail the morning; 

Zion, rise, and greet thy king; 
Like the birds, in this glad dav/ning, 

Lift thy voice and joyful sing. 

Sing till Jesus ^ worthy praises 

Sound in every palmy grove; 
Till each jungle's tangled mazes 

Echo with His matchless love. 



136 



GOD'S GLORIOUS DAY 

Tune — "Must Jesus Bear the Cross Alone." 

GoD^s glorious day will surely come, 
E'en now the hour makes haste; 

The dry land gleams with water brooks, 
And blooms the barren waste. 

Upon the distant mountain tops 
The watchmen lift their voice; 

The islands 'mid the far-off seas 
Have heard them, and rejoice. 

The nations leave their broken gods, 

And hasten to proclaim 
Tmmanuel, the Prince of Peace, 

And bless His saving name. 

How blest the eyes that shall behold 

That glory promised long; 
How blest the ears that glad shall hear 

That earth-encircling song. 



137 



A FRIEND 

From the German of Julius Pabst. 

Mournful long I stood and lone, 
Oft my deepest soul made moan; 
How forsaken was my case, 
Since I would so fain embrace 

A friend, 

And still had none. 

Ah! no, not one 

Who loved me truly. 

Warm and quickly beat my heart 
Oft for joy, and oft for smart, 
Gladly would it overflow. 
Share its pleasure and its woe 

With a friend. 

And still had none. 

Ah! no, not one 

Who loved me truly. 

Oft my tearful eyes around 
Longing searched, but no one found. 
Who to know my heart was given; 
And my prayers besieged high heaven 

For a friend; 

Ah! but for one, 

138 



A faithful one, 
To love me ever. 

See, then from the heavenly land 
Jesus came, and laid His hand 
On my heart, which now grew still; 
Peaceful thoughts my bosom fill 

Of a friend. 

The earth hath none 

Such faithful one. 

Who loves me ever. 



THE APPLE BLOSSOM 

Adapted from the German. 

While musing through the wakening fields 

Of blooming spring I strayed, 
I saw the orchards in their robe 

Of white and red arrayed. 

A blossom from the apple-tree 

I, thoughtful, bore away. 
And read me, from its fragrant leaves, 

The sermon of the May. 

How dainty is its little cup! 

How sweet its perfumed wine! 
Its beauty is my Father's thought, 

He drew each tender line. 

139 



No creature is so mean or small, 

But, rightly understood, 
Reveals His wisdom and His power, 

Proclaims Him mild and good. 

Yes, even in this apple flower. 

As in a glass, I view 
My Saviour's spotless image traced 

In touches firm and true. 

Tis red without, since holy blood 
To cleanse my sin must flow; 

But ah! how white the soul within 
No apple-bloom can show. 



^^ SALVE CAPUT CRUENTATUM " 

This great passion-hymn of Bernard is the fountain 
from which some of our most beautiful religious poems 
have flowed; but no one, so far as I know, has at- 
tempted anything like a literal translation of it. Ger- 
hardt's German hymn beginning " O, Haupt voU Blut 
und Wunden,'' catches the spirit of the Latin hymn, 
but is far from a representation of its real contents; 
while Mrs. Charles's rendering of it, found in Schaff's 
" Christ in Song," treats the original with great free- 
dom, the thought of which often merely suggests her 
own. Whatever may be the merit of these stanzas, I 
have endeavored faithfully to reproduce in them the 
thought of Bernard's hymn. The number of syllables 
in the Latin hymn and in this translation is the same. 

Hail, holy head! blood-stained and torn, 
Crowned only with the cruel thorn, 

140 



So crushed and wounded, marred and bruised, 
And by the smiting reed abused, 

O face so vilely spat upon! 
Hail! Thou whose countenance most sweet 
Is changed, and with distress replete, 
Changed all its freshness and its bloom, 
For the dread pallor of the tomb, 

Thee angels trembling look upon. 

Vigor and life are faded quite — 
I turn in sadness from the sight; 
Death sets his seal upon Thy brow. 
All weakness hangs Thy body now. 

Worn. and consumed by agony. 
Thus, in affliction and disdain. 
For me rejected, suffering, slain; 
Though I by sin am worthless made. 
With all those marks of love displayed, 

O glorious face, appear to me. 

In this, Thy passion and Thy blood. 
Own me as Thine, O Shepherd good; 
From the pure fountain of Thy lips 
The sweetest milk and honey drips. 

Sweeter than earth's delicious charms. 
Me, though condemned, still do not spurn, 
Nor, though unworthy, from me turn; 
As death draws near, Thy head divine 
Hither in mercy, Lord, incline. 

And d3ang, rest Thee in my arms. 

141 



In this, Thy holy sacrifice, 
Let me, rejoicing, sympathize; 
Grant, since I love Thy cross, that I 
Upon this cross with Thee may die; 

Beneath it my last hour I'll spend. 
Dear Jesus, for Thy bitter death 
I'll thank Thee with my latest breath; 
Thou, who art God so full of grace. 
Hear when Thy guilty suppliant prays. 

And be Thou with me to the end. 

When I in death at length must groan. 
Ah! leave me not to die alone; 
In that tremendous hour I pray 
Come, Jesus, come without delay. 

Defend me. Lord, and set me free. 
When Thou dost bid me, Jesus dear. 
From earth depart, then, then appear, 
O Friend, most loving to my soul — 
Upon that cross which makes me whole 

Thy very self show Thou to me. 



142 



THE BIOGRAPHY 



THE BIOGRAPHY 



I. Ancestry and Early Travels 

My wife, Mary Eleanor Roberts, daughter of 
Elbridge Gerry and Mary Kendall Freeman Roberts, 
came of sturdy New England stock. Her paternal 
forebears, John Roberts, born in Ipswich in 1646, and 
Hannah Bray, his wife, made Gloucester, Massachu- 
setts, their home. In 1667, they settled in West 
Gloucester, then called the West Parish, on a piece of 
land granted him by the town for his prowess in 
fighting the Indians. 

A few years ago, when Mary and I were spending 
a summer vacation in that charming seaside city, we 
visited the quaint old house, built by John Roberts, 
with its huge oak beams, low ceilings, cavernous cup- 
boards, great fireplace, high wainscoting and heavy 
doors hung on long wrought-iron hinges. Mary had 
seen it once before, when it was being repaired, and 
those then occupying it gave her one of the door 
hinges as a souvenir of the house of her ancestors. 
She had the hinge neatly mounted on a board twenty- 
five by ten inches, and opposite the small end of it 

145 



she had painted in white and golden letters these 
original lines: 

Through the door that turn'd with me, 
In and out the tide of life 
Ebbed and flowed unceasingly, 
Full two hundred years. 

Thou that readest, wouldst thou see 
All their joy and all their strife? 
Ask the heart that stirs in thee; 
Measure thine own tears. 

Her paternal grandfather, Charles Lincoln Roberts, 
was a prosperous ship-chandler of Gloucester. He 
built a square, commodious house on Middle Street. 
He married Elizabeth Low, one of the family of the 
ancestors of the late Seth Low of New York. Ten 
children were the fruit of this union. The parents 
were persons of devout piety, Universalists of the older 
type, who believed that Christ by His death secured 
the ultimate salvation of every individual of our race. 
They daily read the Scriptures at the hour of family 
worship and prayed with, and for, their children. 
They also required each of them to learn by heart a 
passage of the Bible every Lord's Day. 

The outcome of this careful Christian training must 
have been disappointing to these pious Universalist 
parents since seven of their children became Baptists 
and three Presbyterians. And one of the three that 
united with the Presbyterian Church insisted on de- 
claring his faith in Christ by immersion, and was bap- 

146 



tized by William R. Williams of the Amity Street 
Baptist Church, New York. 

On her mother's side, her ancestry is still more 
distinguished. It reaches back in direct line to Will- 
iam Brewster, who came to Plymouth, Massachusetts, 
in the Mayflower, on her first voyage, and to Thomas 
Prence — sometimes written Prince — who was one of 
the Leyden Pilgrims and the Governor of Plymouth 
Colony for twenty years. Her maternal grandfather 
was Gorham Lovell Freeman, a native of Brewster, 
Cape Cod, a Boston business man, the head of the 
dry-goods house — famous in its day — of Freeman 
and Cobb. 

He was also a downright, manly Christian. For a 
time he seriously contemplated entering the Christian 
ministry, and while he finally decided that it was his 
duty to continue in business, he remained a very 
active member of the Church and for some years was 
a tower of strength to Dr. Thomas Baldwin, pastor 
of the Second Baptist Church of Boston. 

He was distinguished as a liberal and unostentatious 
giver to benevolent objects. Tract Societies, home 
and foreign missions, theological institutions and Sun- 
day Schools were the recipients of his generous gifts. 
He also had marked literary ability, which manifested 
itself in occasional addresses on Christian experience 
and efficiency and in his writing of both prose and 
poetry. But his great usefulness soon came to a 
seemingly untimely end. When only thirty-four years 
old he died of consumption, at Nice, whither he had 

147 



fled with the vain hope of escaping from that relent- 
less disease. 

Keen intellect and fervent piety were combined 
in Mary's maternal grandmother, Mary Kendall. Like 
her Lord, she lived for the good of others. She strove 
earnestly to win the impenitent to faith in Christ, 
and did much to alleviate the suffering of the poor 
and sick. After her husband's death, she found her 
greatest comfort in doing the duties of a manager of 
the Widows and Fatherless Society. To relieve dis- 
tress she gave bountifully from her own purse and 
aided in distributing the money liberally donated by 
her brother-in-law, Nathaniel Cobb. Like her hus- 
band she possessed rare literary talent. She was a 
clear, forceful writer, and like him she too died early, 
passing consciously and peacefully away at the age 
of thirty- two. 

These grandparents left several children. The old- 
est of them was a beautiful young woman with black 
eyes and black hair, and a fair skin, whose bright 
color changed with every strong emotion. Elbridge 
Gerry Roberts of Gloucester, who had already per- 
manently left his native home, loved and won her. 
In September, 1835, they were married in Brookline, 
Massachusetts, and were spoken of by all who knew 
them as an unusually handsome bride and groom. 
To crown all, both of them were decided Christians 
and faithful church members. Their only daughter, 
Mary, was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, July 21, 
1840. From the facts above presented it is clear that 

148 



^ 



she was an offshoot of a strong, intellectual Christian 
ancestry. 

Her father, a merchant, was a partner in the dry- 
goods house of Roberts Brothers, New York. For 
some years he was the buyer for the firm in foreign 
markets. In the discharge of his duties he frequently 
went to England, often alone, but occasionally he took 
his household with him, and for months they resided 
in some English city or town. When his daughter 
was only eighteen months old, in January, 1842, he 
sailed with his family for England on the Great 
Western, the first regular steam packet that carried 
passengers between New York and Liverpool. Young 
as little Mary was, she remembered being tied in a 
chair on deck to keep her from creeping overboard. 
Of this voyage, going and returning, she could recol- 
lect nothing more. 

In 1845, Mr. Roberts took his whole family across 
the ocean to England in a packet sailing ship, the 
Ashburton. For two or three months a hired fur- 
nished house in Manchester was their home. This 
house Mary, when grown to womanhood, could but 
dimly call to mind; but she did distinctly remember 
her rides in the carriage with her mother, some heads 
of ripened wheat, to her then a thing absolutely new, 
shown her by the coachman, who told her how they 
grew in the fields, her low socks that were prone to 
disappear in her ankle-tie shoes, hurting the soles of 
her feet by rolling into folds under them, and her 
pink parasol, of which she was very proud. 

149 



As the summer advanced the family removed to 
the village of Bowden, near Manchester. While in 
this suburban place, Mrs. Roberts often took walks 
with her two children, Edward and Mary. In after 
years, Mary fondly called to mind the green lanes 
and daisied fields where they rambled. Well she re- 
membered a cottage with a thatched roof, and a 
bright, prim garden-border running up to the door 
from a wicket gate, where in their strolls they often 
stopped, and an old woman in a blue dress and a big 
white cap sold them cups of milk, which they drank, 
sitting on the doorstep. She herself says, " In the 
border grew old-time flowers, stockgillies and sops-in- 
wine. I never see Brompton Stocks or garden pinks 
without a vision of the Bowden cottage and my pretty 
young mother. There are but few links of association 
between us and I have always been glad that the 
perfume of a flower has the magical power to show me 
her face." 

In October, 1846, Mrs. Roberts with her children 
and servant sailed for New York on the same ship, 
the Ashburton, that the year before brought them to 
England. Mary, though but six years old, never for- 
got the droning songs of the sailors as they pushed 
the heavy iron bars of the capstan, or reefed the sails, 
or holystoned the decks, — '^ Brandy and gin, brandy 

and gin,'' or 

" A wild goose motion, 

A-sailing on the ocean, 
Is a very pretty motion, 
A very pretty motion/' 

150 



A part of the passage was very rough. The rage of 
the sea so deeply impressed her, that, more than sixty 
years after, she vividly described their experiences in 
the fiercest storm that overtook them. ^' Suddenly a 
squall out of some unforeseen quarter threw the vessel 
far over onto her side, and at the same time a wave 
sweeping over the deck, broke the lights above the 
saloon. The water poured in, swept all the dishes 
from the table to the floor and broke half of them. 
The water was almost ankle-deep, and I remember 
well how gaily the plates and glasses bobbed about 
as the ship swayed to and fro.'' So the little daughter 
of the household was being educated on the sea by 
storm and tempest. 

Once more, in 1853, ^^r. Roberts sailed to England 
with all his family, except his older son. They made 
the passage on a Cunarder, the Baltic. At first they 
found lodgings in London, not far from the British 
Museum. Now began a new chapter in Mary's 
education. When she and her younger brother were 
sent out to walk, asking no questions before they 
started and telling no tales after their return, for a 
good many days they went straight to the British 
Museum, preferring the sights there to the dingy streets 
that were often enveloped in fog. Layard had then 
just begun to send home from Nineveh sculptured, 
bull-headed lions; these and hundreds of other inter- 
esting objects daily delighted and instructed these 
susceptible, inquisitive children. 

Mr. Roberts, finding it necessary to return to New 

151 



York and expecting soon to come back to England, 
found lodgings for his family at Leamington in War- 
wickshire. During the winter his daughter and 
younger son were tutored two hours a day in their 
lodgings, but when spring came even this small amount 
of instruction was intermitted, and the children, with 
the consent of the head of the house, gave themselves 
up to exploring every nook and corner of the lovely 
country around Leamington. In Mary's own words: 
" Up and down the lanes, in and out through 
woods and meadows, over stiles and across rustic 
bridges, we studied the geography and history of the 
whole countryside, till we knew it by heart. We 
watched the hedges bloom, we gathered daisies in the 
grass and primroses in the lanes. We went frequently 
to Warwick. Its castle, its church, its Beauchamp 
Hospital became very familiar to us. Ivy-covered 
Kenilworth we visited two or three times. We knew 
the whole place and Walter Scott was our entrancing 
guide. Fancy what a treat this was for a girl 
of thirteen!" 

In April, 1854, the family again crossed the Atlantic 
to New York, in the same steamship, the Baltic, The 
passage had enough danger in it to make it piquant. 
The captain ran the vessel for a long distance into 
a vast ice-field from which, the channel closing before 
him, he was compelled to back out. In a fierce storm, 
Mary remembered well stealthily creeping up on deck, 
clinging to the railing without any sense of danger, 
and greatly enjoying the fury of the sea; and also 

152 



being on deck when the fog suddenly lifted, disclosing 
an iceberg close at hand. 

So the scenes of beautiful, rural England and of the 
storm-lashed ocean with its glittering, menacing ice- 
floes were woven into her childish mind and became 
part and parcel of her very being. Before she was 
fourteen she had crossed the Atlantic six times, twice 
in a sailing ship. These rovings over land and sea 
early implanted within her an ardent love of travel. 
In after life she was always exquisitely happy when- 
ever she was permitted to journey to new places and 
to look upon new scenes. Southern California, with 
its wealth of flowers even in midwinter, was her special 
delight. The fiords of Norway, thrust in between the 
precipitous mountains of its wild and rocky coast, 
enchanted her; while the North Cape, glowing under 
the midnight sun and, in July, bedecked with double 
buttercups, and the sea, in which it dips its foot, 
touched by the sunbeams, rippling like liquid gold, 
captivated her. The mountains of Switzerland with 
gleaming lakes at their feet, vineyards, orchards, 
meadows, pastures and forests on their sides, their 
heads wrapped about with eternal snow, on which she 
looked and some of which she climbed, were to her a 
source of unending pleasure. Whatever scenes of 
beauty and grandeur she surveyed became her per- 
manent possession. Ever after they vividly lived in 
her imagination. 

Her intense desire to travel, she said, was aptly 



153 



expressed in the following stanzas by Josephine 
Preston Peabody: 

" The little Road says, Go, 
The little House says, Stay: 
And O, it's bonny here at home, 
But I must go away. 

" The little Road, like me. 
Would seek and turn and know; 
And forth I must, to learn the things 
The little Road would show! 

" And go I must, my dears, 
And journey while I may. 
Though heart be sore for the little House 
That had no word but Stay. 

" Maybe, no other way 
Your child could ever know 
Why a little house would have you stay, 
When a Httle Road says. Go." 

Although she travelled much, it seemed a pity that 
her desire for new scenes could not have been even 
more fully gratified. But she used to say that she ex- 
pected, when this life was over, to be permitted to go 
where she pleased and see the greatest wonders of 
God's creation. 



II. Adverse Influences 

Her mother, when but thirty years old, died sud- 
denly in the night, while her little daughter, only six 

154 



years of age, was asleep. Young as Mary was, she 
always had a vivid remembrance of her. She dis- 
tinctly recollected hearing her sing, as she played the 
piano : 

" Flow gently, sweet Afton, amid thy green braes, 
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise, 
For my Mary's asleep by the murmuring stream. 
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream." 

And Mary could never forget how her mother, as 
she sang the last two lines of that stanza, smiling, 
stooped and kissed her. 

She was indelibly impressed with the fact that her 
mother loved her. Others had difficulty in controlling 
the high-spirited child, but her mother swayed and 
subdued her by love. '' Love never faileth.'' When 
Mary was three score and ten she wrote: ^^ I cannot 
remember my mother ever doing anything but loving 
me." She said, ^^ I like to write down my childish 
memories, for each one of them recalls my mother, 
who has always been so dear and lovely a presence 
in my heart." Little incidents, as we have already 
seen, like the fragrance of a flower, suggested her 
mother's face. " Very well," she wrote, ^^ do I remem- 
ber attending Dudley Street Baptist Church, sitting on 
a hassock and going to sleep, my head on my mother's 
lap, while my new gypsy hat, trimmed with a wreath 
of rosebuds, lay on the cushion of the pew." 

In the very last years of her life, nearly seventy 
years after her mother's death, at times when she 

155 



spoke of her, her voice choked with emotion and her 
eyes filled with tears. After her death, I found in her 
commonplace book, the following poem expressive of 
her profound and tender love of her mother. The 
title is, 

TO MY MOTHER IN HEAVEN 

And dost thou think of me in heaven? 
Or dost thou quite forget? 
And is each tender heartstring riven, 
Each memory faded yet? 

Ah! turn and look on me from heaven 

One little moment's space, 

Turn from the burning '' spirits seven " 

Thy rapt and wondering face. 

One moment hush thy anthem clear, 

A trembling human voice to hear, 

And from thy crown of asphodel 

Send circling down, thy love to tell, 

Some leaves of fadeless green 

With blossoms white between. 

Ah ! many a year from green to white 

Has faded since that dreadful night 

When thou in death, in slumber I, 

Drifted apart, as streams that lie 

Blent in one spring among the hills. 

And which in overflowing spills 

One river where the sun may shine 

Forever on its silver line. 

Another that must onward creep 

Long years through caverns dark and deep, 

156 



Till cheered by many a struggling ray, 
At last it slips out into day. 

Then forth into the unknown seas, 
My rudder lost, my compass gone, 
So early I set sail alone, 
T'explore a world of mysteries. 
So early from my mother's knees 
And her fond bosom, orphaned, went 
A way in which the churchyard trees 
With early blossoms strangely blent, 
While every joy and every place. 
Brought with it still a hidden pain. 
Which made me long to turn again, 
Missing the sunshine of thy face. 

And yet I know not why I wept 
Through all those far-off childish years; 
'Twas still a happy, changeful life, 
And yet I welcomed it with tears. 
Oh, why, sweet mother, wast thou gone? 
While hour by hour and day by day 
Thy faithful heart to lean upon 
Had made a rose-walk of the way. 

Now, what was the character of this six-year-old 
child so suddenly and unexpectedly left motherless? 
First of all, she was extremely sensitive. Every nerve 
in her body quivered either with pain or pleasure. 
Any unjust criticism of her conduct, or even any seem- 
ing slight or neglect cut her to the quick. 

She was also unusually imaginative. She herself 
told me that, in her early girlhood, all fairies in fairy 
stories were to her real persons beyond the shadow of 

157 



a doubt. In a letter written by her mother in 1844, 
I find this naive testimony to the vivid imagination 
of her little daughter, who was then only four years 
old: " She talks to her dolls as if they were real babies 
and is quite grieved if I talk about sticking a pin into 
them, fearing that it would hurt them. She is a little, 
wild creature, and if she gets into the country this 
summer will, I doubt not, commence climbing fences 
in fine style. You would be amused to hear her talk, 
as she ' suspects,' ^ concludes,' etc., equal to any 
grown person." 

She was not only excessively sensitive and imagi- 
native, but also high-spirited and quick-tempered. She 
was very apt, especially when she thought some one 
did her wrong, to fly into a towering passion. Of this 
she has herself borne witness. 

Writing to one of her granddaughters, who was 
then eight years old, and seeking to persuade her to 
follow " our dear Lord Jesus," she said, '^ when I was 
a little girl I had a very naughty temper and I some- 
times got very angry about very little things. I am 
afraid that I did not always try to help screaming 
and stamping my foot about things that did not please 
me. But when I gave myself to my Saviour, I knew 
that this angry temper was His enemy and I 
promised Him that I would never give way to it again. 
One day I forgot, and oh, how sorry and ashamed I 
was. I told the Lord Jesus that I could not make 
myself patient and that He would have to do it. I 
have been very naughty sometimes since, but I have 

158 



never wanted to get angry in that way again. The 
Lord is stronger than our sins." 

She has also borne witness to another instance 
of her hot temper. She wrote: " October sixth, 1845, 
was born Frederick Lincoln Roberts, the dear little 
brother. Of course I wanted to see him . . . but that 
was not permitted. Every day I watched my chance, 
and at last I saw the nurse come out of my mother's 
room with her hands full of dishes. I slipped off my 
ankle-tie slippers and crept very silently into the room, 
through a little crack, for the door was not shut quite 
close. It was so dark that I stood still, hardly breath- 
ing for a minute or two, before I could see anything 
distinctly. Over by the crib stood a chair, on which 
I silently mounted, turned down the clothes that were 
about his face and looked entranced at the baby. 
I fell in love with him that moment. He seemed to 
me the dearest, sweetest creature I had ever seen. 
Suddenly I was picked up in no very gentle manner 
and set out into the hall and the door closed against 
me. I lay down on the floor, screamed at the top of 
my voice and called my mother to come and help me. 
After a minute or two, the same cross-faced woman, 
who had put me out, appeared and said, ^ You 
naughty girl, you have waked your mother and the 
baby, go away.' But I would not go. I heard a faint 
voice say, ^ Oh, let her come in,' and in a rush of 
victory and joy I found myself snuggled up beside my 
dear mama, too happy almost to speak." 

Some whose duty it was to care for her, utterly 

159 



misapprehending her disposition and character, by 
their censures and chastisements augmented, instead 
of overcoming her fault. What she needed, while 
being firmly dealt with, was intelligent but tender 
sympathy. She freely gave love and deeply craved it. 
Her mother understood her and through love easily 
and perfectly controlled her. 

When she was about five years old there came into 
her life a most baleful influence. She was put under 
the care of an English nurse, named Ann WooUey, 
who was a good servant when under the eye and 
immediate direction of her mistress, but, when left 
alone, being ignorant and superstitious, was utterly 
unfit to take in hand the training of bright, quick- 
witted children. She at once took a fancy to the 
youngest of them, little Freddie, but conceived a deep 
dislike to Mary and her older brother, and undertook 
to rule them by fear. She frequently told them that 
they were born to be hung. Thoroughly believing 
all the superstitious tales of the lower classes of 
England, she told some of them over and over again 
in order to terrify into obedience the lively, roguish 
youngsters temporarily committed to her care. Some 
of these gruesome stories are too horrible to repeat, 
but among the milder of them was this, in Mary's 
own words: " She told every day about a wicked boy^ 
who did not mind his nurse and was haunted by Satan 
in the shape of a black cat, invisible to all others, 
which, when he was dying, leaped upon his chest and 
inhaled his soul in his latest breath. No words can 

1 60 



tell my horror and dread of that cat." In the vigor 
of her mature womanhood she always shrank with a 
shiver from the fiery eyes of a black cat. 

This foolish nurse one day took little Mary up 
upon her knee and gravely said to her, ^' If you keep 
on being such a naughty child, you will grow smaller 
and smaller until at last you will slip into a hole in 
the ground and go and serve the fairies.'^ 

Now, as we have already seen, this imaginative child 
believed fairies to be real beings and this prophetic 
threat filled her with alarm. Then in an unexpected 
way the ominous words of her nurse seemingly began 
to be fulfilled. Her father came into the nursery and 
ascertained the comparative stature of his children 
by standing them against the door and making a mark 
to show the height of each, and said, " I will measure 
you each month to see who grows the fastest." He 
of course knew nothing of what the nurse had said 
to his little daughter. But whenever Ann accused her 
of being bad, Mary measured herself by putting a 
book on her head, holding the end of it firmly against 
the door and slipping from under it. If the book was 
at her mark on the door she was happy. But one 
morning she thoughtlessly measured herself before 
she put on her shoes, and finding the end of the book 
below her mark, believed that she was growing shorter 
and her heart sank in despair. 

The nurse also enforced her commands by punish- 
ment. At times she shut up the two older children 
in a dark closet, saying to them, " If you make a 

i6i 



noise the rats will bite your toes/' Mary said, ^^ How 
many hours have I spent in that closet, hopping from 
one foot to the other in order to discourage the rats.'' 

Why was this permitted? The mother was dead, 
and the busy father was much of the time away from 
home, often in England, and Mary's aunt, with whom 
for a season she lived, burdened with a thousand cares, 
so long as her little niece was well, which was most 
of the time, left the motherless child, shy and hot-tem- 
pered, to the tender mercies of that dreaded nurse, 
who tried to rule her by threatening her with hobgob- 
lins. She was too high-spirited not to rebel at times. 
She said, ^^ I remember distinctly standing with my 
back to a lamp-post, angry and determined, and hav- 
ing a passing old gentleman advise me to be good 
and mind my mother. ^ My mother!' I called after 
him; ^ this is my nurse.' " 

She often planned to tell her father, when he came 
home, of Ann's stories and threats, but she herself 
so devoutly believed in fairies, spooks and goblins 
dire that in downright terror of Ann her heart failed 
her, so the abuse went on unchecked. 

But Mary was called to battle with another adverse 
influence. In the spring of 1852 her father married 
Miss Marianne Synear. She was about thirty years 
old, an orphan with sufficient money to have lived 
comfortably single. Her parents were English. She 
was an only child. She never had had any experience 
that fitted her to care for children. She had however 
considerable culture and refinement, having taken in 

162 



New York City a course of training in what was then 
called a finishing school. She had also the discipline, 
practical and moral, that came from caring for her 
widowed mother during a long and painful illness. 
Take her all in all, she was a woman of a fairly 
forceful character ; but she was afflicted with deafness, 
and in disposition was somewhat jealous. If the 
children of the household conversed with each other 
and she failed to hear what they were saying, she 
surmised that they were talking about her. In 
groundless resentment she often spoke bitterly to 
them, sharply reproving them for what they had 
neither said nor done. If Mary's father even kissed 
her good night it awoke the demon of jealousy in her 
stepmother. The whole family lived oppressed under 
a cloud of suspicion. Mary, fond of reading and 
study, at one time rose at an early hour tliat she 
might undisturbed read her Vergil. When her step- 
mother discovered this, she put the breakfast an hour 
earlier so as to deprive Mary of this privilege. The 
older son, a bright, playfully mischievous boy, who 
sometimes reprehensibly enjoyed annoying his sus- 
picious stepmother, before he was ten years old was 
temporarily driven from his home; his father, to save 
the peace of the household, putting him into a private 
school in Newport, R. I., while he, with all the rest of 
the family, went to England. But the sensitive, sus- 
ceptible Mary, often quivering with pain under 
groundless suspicion and false accusation, lived on, 
bearing with heroism her bitter burden, but often 

163 



finding some relief in tears during the silent watches 
of the night. 

She was not of course utterly desolate. When her 
father, away much of the time on business, came 
home, he always brought sunshine and cheer into the 
household. Moreover she had many resources of 
happiness in herself. Her ear was ever attent to the 
rapturous voices of nature that cheered her and for 
considerable periods drove sadness from her heart. 
And above all she found in her younger brother, whom 
she ardently loved, a well-spring of contentment and 
joy. But so deep were the wounds in her heart, 
unwittingly made by her jealous stepmother, that it 
took a long time to heal them. For at least ten years 
after her marriage, if she did anything that she thought 
might be questioned, she would at once begin an 
earnest defense of it. When kindly assured that no 
one for a moment doubted the propriety of what she 
had done, she would reply, ^^ I was so long found fault 
with for whatever I did, to defend myself has become 
a second nature." How easy it is thoughtlessly to 
wound a sensitive soul, but how difficult it is to 
obliterate the mischief done! 



III. Multiplicity of Homes 

A PERMANENT home has unquestionably marked 
advantages and on the whole may be most desirable; 
but a multiplicity of residences has also its beneficent 

164 



educational influences. It refreshes the soul with 
variety of scene, stimulates thinking by suggesting 
new ideas, keeps the mind out of ruts, and enlarges 
our knowledge of men and of society. At all events 
the subject of this sketch enjoyed to the full what- 
ever advantages may be justly claimed for it. 

We have already incidentally noted her places of 
temporary abode in England and the beautiful, his- 
toric scenes which in her early life were there woven 
forever into her thoughts and became a priceless pos- 
session. But here also in her own country her life 
was quite freed from monotony by her ever-changing 
environment. 

She first opened her eyes in Roxbury, Massachu- 
setts, where she also spent a part of her childhood, 
and clearly remembered the scenes that then deeply 
impressed her. She always carried in her mind a 
picture of the place where she resided. The house 
was called a cottage, but it had several good sized 
rooms. It stood in a large garden, full of fruit and 
enclosed by a high stonewall. " There were rows of 
currant and raspberry bushes, and apricots were 
trained upon the walls of the stable " in which she 
played with her older brother and her cousin, Agnes 
Mcjannett. She recollected that she slept in a 
mahogany crib and ate her meals under the charge 
of a nurse, named Caroline; that her father, returning 
from England, brought her " a doll as tall as herself, 
with beautiful wax head, hands and feet, long brown 
curls and a wire that being pulled opened and shut 

165 



its eyes;" and that she and her cousin greatly pre- 
ferred their rag dolls with cheeks painted red. She 
distinctly remembered the long parlor where her 
father sat Sunday afternoons, reading the Baptist 
weekly newspaper, and the '^ fans made of peacock 
feathers, hanging on each side of the empty fireplace, 
where the bright andirons were crossed in summer 
inactivity.'' 

Such was one of the homes of her early life, where 
her every want was met and satisfied, a home filled 
with, and surrounded by, beautiful objects that min- 
istered to the taste, and above all irradiated by her 
father's and mother's love. Young as she was, only 
five years old, its gracious influence followed her to 
the end of her days. 

When she was brought home from her second visit 
to England, her father, who had preceded his family, 
welcomed them to a house, that he had hired and into 
which he had moved all their furniture, on Harrison 
Street, Brooklyn, N. Y. Although a mere child, she 
remembered how delighted she was with her new mug 
and her pretty crib, and how elated she was because, 
for the first time in her life, she was put into a room 
by herself, in the second story, above the front door 
and next to the room occupied by her parents. It 
was here that that dreadful calamity suddenly over- 
took her, the death of her adored mother. Her bitter 
affliction was somewhat mitigated by the presence 
in the household of her Aunt Sarah Freeman, her 
mother's sister. She was about two years younger 

i66 



than her mother, and was " very sweet and kind." 
Her father also made much of his little daughter, 
taking her crib into his own room. This house, which 
at first was to Mary radiant with joy, was in a night 
transformed into a place of unutterable sadness and 
gloom. Ever after it seemed to her to be the valley 
and shadow of death. 

Anxious to get away from the sad associations of 
the place where the wife of his early manhood, the 
idol of his heart, had so suddenly and unexpectedly 
passed away, in the spring of 1847, Mr. Roberts 
took his family to Mamaroneck, Westchester County, 
N. Y., on Long Island Sound, to spend the summer. 
Mary's remembrance of this temporary home are 
altogether pleasant. The celebration of the Fourth 
of July, when early in the morning, some one exploded 
firecrackers in a barrel under her window, the great 
Newfoundland dog, the excursions in sailboats on 
Long Island Sound, the overturning of their boat 
once as they were coming up to the wharf so that all 
aboard got a fright and a wetting, but gained the 
landing without personal injury, during all her after 
life never faded from her memory. 

In the autumn she was brought back to Brooklyn 
and the family lived on Sidney Place, in the house 
of her Aunt Elizabeth, her father's sister, who was 
the mother of Agnes Mcjannett, one of her favorite 
cousins. She and Agnes were about the same age 
and very fond of each other. They had the freedom 
of the house. To their unbounded delight they con- 

167 



stantly played and romped together, attended the 
same school and received the loving care of Mary's 
Aunt Sarah Freeman. 

A year passed by when, in September, 1848, her 
father made her Aunt Sarah his wife. The testimony 
is abundant that she was a lovely woman both in face 
and character. For several years she had been a 
member of the family and the children were warmly 
attached to her. They could not love her any more 
than they had before, but, after her marriage, they 
called her Aunt Sarah Mama. But she was frail in 
body, having inherited from her father a tendency to 
consumption. 

On account of her delicate health, wishing to remove 
her from the too exhilarating air of the ocean, Mr. 
Roberts, early in the summer of 1849, removed to 
Sing Sing. He took his family into a spacious board- 
ing-house. It was a cool place with a large garden 
and overlooked the State Prison. Here Mary attended 
a public school. Here too she had her first sickness, 
suffering from measles. This, she said, was the first 
time that she ever remembered to have had an ache 
or a pain. She recollected the excitement in the board- 
ing-house, when the prison guards tracked across the 
flower beds, in the garden, some fugitive prisoners that 
were attempting to escape from " durance vile," and 
she also distinctly remembered the startling news 
circulated among the school children, as though it were 
a dreadful calamity, that one of the little girls in the 
school had a stepmother. She said, ^^ I had one 

168 



myself, but I never realized it.'' She did however 
learn later that there is a vast difference between 
stepmothers. 

Late in the season her gentle, loving stepmother 
passed away. On her death-bed she assured her sor- 
rowing husband that the year just ending had been 
the happiest of her life and " whispering the twenty- 
third Psalm she went home." 

In 1850, when Mary was ten years old, her father, 
expecting to be away from home, took his children 
and their nurse, Ann, to Newton Centre, Massachu- 
setts, and established them in a boarding-house, near 
the home of her Aunt Mary Colby, that, in a general 
way, they might be under her supervision and care. 
Here in pleasant surroundings, under the loving 
watch-care of her favorite aunt, and playing and 
frolicking with her cousins, Charles and Henry Colby, 
she spent a happy summer. The wall in front of the 
Colby estate was then being built and out of the 
slabs of slate the children constructed mimic wigwams 
and played Indian. The joyful experiences of that 
summer were golden threads woven into the warp of 
her life. 

Soon after the advent of the deaf and jealous step- 
mother by her father's third marriage, the family 
lived for a year at Flushing, Long Island. Their 
house, fairly large and painted white, was pleasant 
and attractive. Behind it was a large garden, plenti- 
fully stocked with small fruits. There was also an 
apple orchard and a pasture. On either side of the 

169 



drive from the highv/ay to the barn was a row of fine 
old cherry-trees, starred over with blossoms in the 
spring and red with fruit in the summer. There too 
the birds nested and sang and feasted. In the barn 
was a bran-new brougham and in the stable were fine 
carriage-horses. The children enjoyed many pleasant 
drives over the country roads. In the house and about 
the place there were a plenty of servants. Though 
the stay at Flushing was short, the family enjoyed 
there freedom, ease and beauty, and the susceptible 
Mary absorbed all that ministered to her esthetic 
taste. 

Her father, still engaged in business in New York, 
left Flushing early each week-day morning, and, on 
his return in the evening, his daughter seldom missed 
greeting him with a fervid kiss. He reciprocated her 
love with all the warmth of his great heart. His 
tender affection was for the time being a fairly effec- 
tual foil to the suspicion of her stepmother. The 
happy days that she spent at Flushing always lingered 
like sunshine in her heart. 

Nevertheless in the house at times things were not 
lovely. Mary said that her new ^^ Mama had never 
been taught housekeeping and had to depend largely 
on servants. Finally she added a housekeeper to the 
lot and had to turn everybody away on account of 
quarrels. The coachman threatened to stab the 
housekeeper because she ordered his wife, the cook, 
about. So I learned by watching the tribulations of 
my elders, how not to do it." 

170 



Her next home, on this side of the Atlantic, was just 
outside the village of Tariffville, Connecticut. The 
family, returning from England in 1854, thought it 
unwise to spend the summer at their old residence in 
Brooklyn. Mary's Uncle Charles Roberts, after the 
great business panic of 1837, when the dry-goods 
house of Roberts Brothers failed, went to Tariffville^ 
where he still owned a factory of Marseilles quilts, and 
for some years superintended it. At last this also 
closed its doors. He then bought a farm about a mile 
beyond the village, where he lived in quietude and 
comfort to the end of his days. He was a large- 
hearted, generous soul, and he now welcomed under 
his hospitable roof his brother's family on their return 
from Europe. They, however, soon rented a vacant 
cottage, standing in the woods, not far from his house, 
and continued to live there for three or four years. 
This solitary residence, surrounded by forests, entered 
so largely into the life and character of Mary, that 
she shall herself describe it. '^ We set up housekeep- 
ing again in this secluded place. A wagon road lead- 
ing up to the cottage wound for a long way through 
a beautiful wood; but back of the house there was 
a clearing across which a foot-path ran. Before the 
house was a garden, and beyond the garden a fringe 
of pine-trees on the brow of a little elevation, that 
overlooked a wide landscape. The forest itself was 
principally of pine and hemlock and so lonely that if 
we (i. e. we children) heard any one approaching, we 
turned out of the path and hid in the thicket. But 

171 



on the edge of the wood, near the house, there was a 
growth of the Kalmia or mountain laurel, that, in its 
blooming time, was a glory of white and pink flowers, 
sculptured like shells. Below these again grew all 
kinds of violets, but chiefly the large bird's foot 
variety. The soil was very sandy and nothing grew 
very well in the garden, but we tried hard to make it 
yield all sorts of things. Not far away in the meadow 
was a brook that we crossed on our way to Uncle 
Charles' house. It was quite hidden by trees, as was 
our whole outside world. This brook was our delight 
and our playfellow. There the little boys fished and 
bathed, and there Ned " (her older brother) '^ set up 
his water-wheels and other contrivances. 

^^ Through the summer we were very happy here. 
A Mr. Bowles, pastor of the church in Tariffville, 
came over afternoons and was supposed to tutor us 
in Latin and other things. I remember that we 
learned the first declension by his naming the different 
trees penna, pennae, etc., as he taught us, reclining 
upon sweet pine needles, on the slope of the hill. We 
liked him very much, for he was not at all strenuous. 
And w^hile we did not learn a great deal, we thrived 
on the sweet summer air, and absorbed the beauty of 
the wood. 

^^ When the two little watermelons that we had raised 
with difficulty in our barren garden patch were ripe, 
we showed them to Mr. Bowles and offered him the 
choice of our treasures. We were quite overcome 
when he said that he would take both and went home 

172 



with one under each arm. I have always been sorry 
that he did this. I doubt if he would have done it had 
he known that we would remember it for fifty years 
and more." 

So the beauty of the forest and flowers, the crystal 
brook singing on its winding way through the meadow, 
the flittings and the songs of the birds, the sandy 
garden grudgingly responding to their toil were the 
teachers of these happy children, roaming with free- 
dom in the fields. They there found '^ tongues in 
trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, 
and good in every thing." 

Of parental care they had but little. Their father 
came home only on Saturday nights; but, to the joy 
of their hearts, he spent Sundays with them. But 
the stepmother could never understand these wide- 
awake, bustling children, who by marriage had become 
her care. Nothing that the two older ones did ever 
seemed to please her. The older son by degrees grew 
callous to her censures and at times even received them 
with merriment, which naturally could not fail to 
enrage her. Of course neither stepmother nor stepson 
was wholly right. But least of all could she penetrate 
the character of her stepdaughter, barely fourteen 
years old, who preferred to dish-washing, sweeping 
and dusting, romping in the fields and woods, or 
reading any book on which she could lay her hands. 

In reviewing Mary's life up to this time, we find 
that before she was fourteen years old, she had had^ 
including her places of residence in England, thirteen 

173 



different homes. Variety in scene and society had 
been superabundant. Her study of geography was 
not wholly theoretical but largely experimental; not 
simply by map but by sight and touch. 



IV. Schools Attended 

To get any adequate understanding of the influ- 
ences by which Mary's character was moulded, we 
must not only take into account her varied places of 
abode, but also the schools that she attended, some 
of which were also her temporary homes. 

Her parents, with a single exception, sent her to 
private or select schools. The first was at Roxbury, 
kept by a teacher who then seemed to her to be very 
old, but was perhaps not more than twenty-five. The 
large school-room was divided into two parts by a 
green baize curtain. She said " the big children were 
on one side, the little tots on the other. I learned to 
spell and read. Afterwards I studied Peter Parley's 
Geography and a little arithmetic on the abacus that 
hung on the wall, learning to add and subtract by 
counting its bright balls. I was taught also to sew 
a little patchwork and made a bedquilt for my doll." 
This was the beginning of her education in letters, 
science and practical life. Before she was six years 
old, she could read with ease. On her sixth birthday 
a Bible was given her because she could read and 
pronounce correctly most of the hard words in it. 

174 



She said: " As I, like most children, woke early in the 
morning and understood that I must not disturb 
father's sleep, I became very fond of reading my Bible 
in bed. My favorite books were Ezekiel and the 
Revelation, not that I understood what they meant, 
for I read them as I might have read fairy tales. 
What I enjoyed was the imagery and sweep of the 
language. Then, too, since my mother had gone to 
heaven, I liked to read something about the place 
where she was." 

Wherever the family sojourned for a time she was 
either tutored at home or sent to some school in the 
neighborhood. In 1847 she was among the juveniles 
of Packer Institute, Brooklyn; in 1848 in a district 
school at Sing Sing. We have however no record of 
what she learned in these transient spells of schooling. 
But a mind so alert and receptive could not have 
failed to add much to its accumulating stores of 
knowledge. 

There was, however, one school that she attended, 
which deserves special consideration on account of its 
influence upon her whole subsequent career. She 
spent, as we have already seen, the summer of 1850 
at Newton Centre, under the wise and tender oversight 
of her Aunt Mary Colby, who, noting the baleful in- 
fluence of her nurse upon her mind and heart, in the 
autumn persuaded her father to send her to the 
school of the Misses Anable, in Philadelphia. There 
were four of them. Miss Anna Maria, Miss Hattie, 
Miss Fanny, and Miss Mary. With them lived their 

175 



mother, their maiden aunt, Miss Cynthia Sheldon, and 
their young brother, then studying law, but who after- 
wards was Dr. Courtland Anable of the Baptist minis- 
try. I name them all because each became a force in 
forming the character of the timid child of ten now 
committed to their care. Their school, among the 
many schools for girls then scattered over the country, 
was noted for its excellence. Among its pupils were 
the daughters of distinguished missionaries. Abbie 
Ann Judson, Nellie Bennett and Rosa Gate were there, 
also a daughter of Samuel F. Smith, the author of 
our national hymn. Mary was the youngest of the 
group. Motherless herself, a motherless girl only a 
little older than she, Helen Sappington of Havre de 
Grace, Maryland, whose black mourning dress con- 
trasted with her fair skin and golden hair, became her 
chief friend. On the fourth floor of the house 
occupied by the Anable family and their school, 311 
Walnut Street, " there was," Mary said, " a hall, in 
which, behind the balustrades of the staircase, and 
hidden by two large wardrobes from the bedroom 
doors, was a big old lounge, lighted at one end by a 
window. How many happy hours have I spent with 
Nellie in that safe retreat! Perched there we played 
and read, read the Bible through several times, just 
to see which could do it the quickest.'' Such is one 
of the pictures that she drew of herself and her boon 
companion in that select school. 

She thought that Miss Hattie Anable looked like 
her adored Aunt Sarah Mama and she at once loved 

176 



her with all her heart. Miss Hattie became her spe- 
cial guardian, tenderly caring for her so long as 
she remained in the school. She learned that the 
special love of one is better than the general love of 
four. 

When she first entered the Philadelphia school, she 
occupied, with six or seven other girls, a large third- 
story front room stretching across the whole width of 
the house. Besides the necessary furniture, there was 
a large bookcase, filled with books on all sorts of 
subjects. She says, " It was not long before I lighted 
on this treasure." In fact she became so absorbed in 
reading that she quite neglected her studies and her 
practising on the piano. To correct this fault she 
was required to practise evenings in the hall, so that 
her teacher, sitting below in the parlor, could know 
that she was attending to business. The older girls, 
bent on fun, dressed themselves up in sheets, poured 
cologne into their soap dishes, and setting it afire, 
came in single file, blew out her candle, danced around 
her, the pale flames of the cologne giving them a 
ghostly appearance, in order to see how frightened 
she would be; they knowing that she would neither 
dare to scream nor to stop playing for fear of Miss 
Fanny, who was a strict disciplinarian. This gives 
us another peep into both the discipline and fun of 
this once famous girls' school. 

After a time Mary was at night separated from the 
other girls and put into Miss Cynthia's room, to 
sleep, so that this venerable spinster might superin- 

177 



tend her toilet operations. She was not only the 
youngest girl in the school but was very small for her 
age. Her nurse at home, always having regarded her 
as a little child, had never taught her to put on her 
own clothes, had even brushed her teeth for her, and 
she needed some one to teach her how to care for 
herself, and none could render this necessary service 
better than Miss Cynthia, who also undertook with 
her nostrums to minister to her, when she was over- 
taken with any slight ailment. She was subject to 
severe nervous headaches. " When these showed 
themselves,'' she said, '' Miss Cynthia doctored me 
with all sorts of vile medicine. I remember particu- 
larly the cayenne pepper she used to make me take 
in a wine-glass of water." 

Still she was generally happy under her kind and 
aged caretaker. Opposite their room was a closet 
under the stairs, where sometimes she hid with books, 
which she had taken from the library and read them 
lying on the floor, propping her head on her hands. 
She said, ^^ Shelley I liked best, though of course I 
did not understand him. I also read Keats, Jane 
Eyre, Shakespeare and all the rest." When her head 
ached severely she was excused from her classes. So 
she declares, " I became so entranced with Lalla 
Rookh, that in order to cut school and finish it, I 
banged my head against the door till I could truth- 
fully say I had a headache." At that time she had 
but a slight appreciation of the perversity of such 
conduct. The sharp conviction of that came later. 

178 



But she goes on to say,-" In the meantime Miss Hattie 
allowed me to read Plutarch's Lives and Sparks' 
United States History, which doubtless served as a 
balance. I remember very well sitting on a cricket 
in her room and swallowing whole Uncle Tom's 
Cabin/' And she was not yet quite twelve years old. 
Surely this thirst for reading the best English litera- 
ture was somewhat extraordinary in a girl of that age, 
who had never had any permanent home, nor any 
persistent intellectual drill and for a large part of her 
life had been under the care of an ignorant, supersti- 
tious nurse. 

Moreover, she says that her father did all he could 
to spoil her. He bought her everything she asked for, 
and she was very proud of her bronze boots and kid 
gloves. When visiting her in Philadelphia, he brought 
a champagne basket full of gifts. Among them, she 
says, were " a bag of red and white sugar hearts, 
fruit and cakes, nuts and candy, everything that Papa 
thought I would like. So all the girls, that had not 
gone home for the holidays, had a feast. But the 
next day. Miss Cynthia, her wig on one side of her 
head and her cap on the other as usual, found it 
necessary to administer salts and senna to at least one 
sick child." 

While at school in Philadelphia she enjoyed some 
outside social privileges. At either of two houses in 
the city she occasionally spent a Saturday afternoon. 
One of them was the home of Miss Margie Robertson, 
a day scholar, whose uncle, while in China, made the 

179 



acquaintance of Mary's uncle,, there. Hence the tie 
between them; the other was the pleasant, attractive 
residence of Mrs. Weir, a warm friend of her Aunt 
Georgette. She says, ^^ There was a garden that I 
enjoyed to the full, not having even a flower in a 
pot at the school. '^ 

Moreover she spent her long vacation, in the sum- 
mer of 1851, in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her 
numerous uncles, aunts and cousins, who resided there. 
They had pleasant homes with attractive grounds. 
Most of them had intimately known her mother, whom 
they highly esteemed and ardently loved, and for her 
sake they naturally made much of her only daughter. 
That summer was a bright and happy spot in Mary's 
early life. Dr. Fife of Woodstock, Ontario, who mar- 
ried her mother's Aunt Rebecca,* was there. He loved 
to take long walks and often took her along with him. 
" He knew," she said, " all the flowers of the region, but 
if he was at a loss for the name of a flower, I always 
had one ready at the tip of my tongue." This declara- 
tion reveals an important fact in her life. From her 
girlhood she was a practical botanist. Wherever she 
went she very soon became acquainted with every 
flower, shrub and tree and called each one by its com- 
mon or scientific name, usually by both. In her own 
words, — "I had a very lovely summer. Aunt Susie 
took me with her to visit the sick and the poor. The 
pastor at that time was Dr. Shailer, who had a lame 
little daughter. We used to gather raspberries in the 
garden for her and I was allowed to carry them to the 

180 



parsonage. There were in this garden some old apple- 
trees with low branches. In one of them I had a 
favorite corner where I could sit on one limb and rest 
my feet on another. Though the apples were green 
they never seemed to hurt me, and I often had a lunch 
of Aunt Susie's nice fluted gingerbread, which she kept 
in a certain tin box for my delectation. In a little 
room upstairs were cases full of books, belonging to 
Uncle Daniel. These too were devoured in my nest 
in the apple-tree.'' 

In 1852 she left the school in Philadelphia, where 
she had spent two years. She did not while there 
wake up to the importance of careful hard study. She 
had done but little if any of it up to the time when 
she bade good-by to the City of Brotherly Love. But 
the passion for reading had been fanned to a fiercer 
flame and burned on till the end of her earthly life. 

Many years afterwards she gave her estimate of the 
school of the Misses Anable in the following words: 

" It was a real old-fashioned girls' school. We 
spoke nothing but French at meals, or were supposed 
to do so. We went to walk two and two with a 
teacher at each end of the line, and the little boys 
in the street occasionally called us ' the menagerie.' 
We learned to play a little on the piano, to draw a 
little, in fact to do a Httle of everything. The best 
thing however that came to us was our association 
with four highly cultivated Christian ladies, who 
really tried to make good and fine women out of us." 

We find her next in a private school at Flushing, 

181 



Long Island, kept by a Quaker family in their own 
house. Here she went on with her French. Having 
been required by the Misses Anable to speak that 
language more or less while in Philadelphia, she foimd 
her knowledge of it quite equal to that of the daughter 
of the house, who now undertook to teach her. She 
was soon promoted to read alone with her instructor 
the history of Numa Pompilius, the second king of 
Rome. It was easy French and she was at once 
deeply interested in the biographical events narrated. 
She took her copy of the book home and read it 
through in a single evening. This quite upset her 
tall, sandy-haired, angular teacher, who wanted her 
to read only half a page a day. The other things 
taught her were much like those that she had been 
called upon to learn in Philadelphia. She says, '' We 
were taught a lot of things that were of no particular 
use to us in our more mature life; a little drumming 
on the piano, a good deal of fine stitching, which the 
sewing machine has superseded, the making of ugly 
embroideries at the risk of our eyes, the preserving 
of fruit in the most expensive manner, which the 
process of canning and the large importation of fruit 
have made almost obsolete. All these things we 
learned and hated." 

Her most important training in school now demands 
our attention. In 1854 the family was at Tariffville, 
Connecticut. The stepmother grew more and more 
weary of the two older children. The tension was 
near the breaking point. To relieve it and avoid a 

182 



catastrophe, Mr. Roberts decided to send his older 
son to school at Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson River, 
and his daughter to a ^^ Female Academy " at Hudson, 
a small but thriving and beautiful city, the capital of 
Columbia County, N. Y., on the east bank of the 
Hudson River, thirty-six miles south of Albany. Its 
environment was attractive; the broad river, with its 
steamboats and sailing craft constantly passing up 
and down stream, was a stimulating sight. The 
Academy was a private enterprise, built up, and pre- 
sided over, by Rev. John B. Hague, an accurate 
scholar and an enthusiastic teacher. 

When Mary entered this Academy she found her- 
self among about thirty or forty young women. 
Speaking of her first experience there she said: "I 
was a very shy little girl of fourteen, very small for 
my age, with no education to speak of except a smat- 
tering of French, a little Latin and Watts on the 
Mind,'' Her discursive education, her general knowl- 
edge of things, was probably beyond that of most of 
her associates; but that did not materially help her 
in the specific studies which now confronted her. She 
was quite ignorant of arithmetic; she herself declares 
that she hardly knew the multiplication table, yet 
her teachers put her into algebra and followed that 
with geometry and trigonometry. This was probably 
done because it was so set down in the prescribed 
course of study. 

When she began her work at Hudson she had but 
little self-confidence. She says, " I had been told all 

183 



my life, first by Ann, my nurse, and then by my step- 
mother, that I was stupid, awkward, unreliable and 
good for nothing generally. I was afraid to say that 
my soul was my own, unless some one hurt my feelings 
and then I v/as often thrown into a passion. I loved 
and enjoyed nature and was living a life in books 
quite apart from the daily routine. I was profoundly 
unhappy. Mama did not love me. My father could 
not show me any endearment without exciting her 
jealousy. I used often to add to my evening devotions 
a prayer that I might die." 

It was a sad day to her when she was left alone at 
Hudson. But soon she says, " A fair-haired girl about 
my own age, v/ith the loveliest blue eyes, came to 
me and said, ^ We are both strangers, let us be friends,' 
and led me out into the natural life of a boarding- 
school student.'' 

She now discovered that the young ladies, into 
whose society she had been thrown, were very con- 
siderate of each other. Several of the older ones were 
devoted Christians. They established a Saturday 
evening prayer-meeting in one of their rooms and 
talked to the younger students that attended it in 
the most direct and loving way, and led them gently 
into the kingdom of our Lord. She soon came to love 
warmly these happy, earnest Christian young women, 
who were so solicitous for the salvation of all in the 
school. While she was always very reticent about 
her deepest, most sacred experiences, it is pretty clear 
that here her heart was touched and transformed by 

184 



the Spirit of God. From that time she was always 
on the most intimate terms with her Saviour. She 
no more doubted His constant and intimate presence 
with her than she did the beating of her heart or the 
acts of her will. To hear her pray was an inspiration, 
since it brought one into the immediate presence of 
our divine Lord. 

What intellectual work did this Academy require 
of its students? As I write, its four years' course of 
study lies before me. In it Latin, Mathematics, 
Ancient History, the English Classics and Intellectual 
and Moral Science were specially emphasized, while 
in the last year of the course French and German were 
required. It was a good disciplinary course of study, 
such as was in vogue in those days. This course 
Mary and her intimate life-long friend. Miss Sophie 
L. Savage, completed in three years. The latter 
writes me, " Mary was a hard-working, conscientious 
student. We often dug out our Latin and mathemat- 
ics together, and there was a small circle of us, who 
greatly enjoyed reading together the best English 
literature." 

This comradeship in study may have been carried 
too far for the highest good of all. It is often very 
beneficial to the one in the group that leads, but is apt 
to be quite detrimental to those that dependently 
follow. Mary has left her testimony, which throws a 
sidelight on what occurred in her immediate coterie. 
She said, " I was again the youngest in my class but 
I got along pretty well in most of my studies, being 

185 



carried bodily through my mathematics by Sophie and 
Rose, who did my examples if I would help them 
read their Latin." The leader in each case walked 
ahead without help, while those that followed must 
have gone on crutches, probably losing power as they 
hobbled on behind. 

But in spite of all drawbacks, Mary acquired in 
this school real intellectual discipline, the power to 
think clearly and consecutively and to express her 
thoughts in a simple, direct, forceful style. Poetic 
in temperament, a strain that flowed down to her 
from her maternal grandfather, she responded to a 
like strain in her gifted teacher and began to write 
in verse, many stanzas of which had the imaginative, 
creative touch of genuine poetry. A single specimen 
from her many early effusions, will confirm and illus- 
trate what I say. The following poem on Forests 
was written before she was seventeen. 

Standing by river side, 
Bathed by the ocean's tide, 
Far o'er the country wide, 

Lovely and green ! 
Waving now branches light, 
Now plumes as dark as night, 
Shading the fountains bright, 

Forests are seen. 

Birds, with their joyous lay. 
Brooks, singing on their way. 
Winds, with the leaves at play, 
Fill them with song! 

i86 



Moss, soft to squirrels' feet, 
Wild rose and lily sweet, 
The hare and rabbit fleet, 
To them belong. 

They stand as temples grand. 
Pure from their Maker's hand. 
Through every clime and land. 

Pointing to Heaven; 
They lift their heads on high. 
Resting against the sky. 
E'er Him to glorify. 

Who them has given. 

And when the Autumn flings 
Joy from her rosy wings. 
And clothes all earthly things 

In her rich dyes, 
Dofling its mantle green. 
Robed as of earth the queen, 
The wood awhile is seen, 

'Till Autumn flies. 

Like hues that sometimes grace 
A pale but lovely face, 
Fading away apace. 

As the life wanes; 
Beauteous they meet the eye. 
Hiding the ills that lie 
Seeming far off, yet nigh, 

'Till power death gains. 

And though through Winter drear^ 
Hung with the icy spear. 
Their leaves all brown and sere, 
The forests stand; 

187 



Yet when returning Spring 
The song-bird back shall bring, 
Their green shade shall they fling 
Far through the land. 

Thus in the darksome grave 
We lay the good and brave, 
Returning what He gave 

Unto the Giver; 
Rising from death's cold night 
Into the Heaven's blessed light, 
Sorrows all put to flight, 

They live forever. 

While at Hudson one social force outside the school 
did much toward cultivating her tastes and moulding 
her character. About twenty-five miles dovm the river 
there lived at Ellerslie, an estate near Rhinebeck, Mr. 
and Mrs. William Kelly and his sister, Miss Mary 
Jane. Mr. Kelly, having inherited a fortune, bought 
this attractive place of several hundred acres. On it 
was a large, white colonial mansion, on three sides of 
which were wide unroofed piazzas. It stood so high 
that from it the river could be seen for a long distance 
as it wound toward the sea. There were near it ex- 
tensive green-houses. The table was supplied from 
them with foreign grapes, pineapples, early straw- 
berries and vegetables. Every morning during the 
winter, trays of flowers were brought into the house, 
which made the rooms a continual bower of beauty 
and fragrance. There were also times in spring and 
autumn when the gardens and groves were a dream of 

i88 



beauty. In short, Ellerslie was Mary's ideal of all 
that was picturesque and lovely. 

Mr. Kelly was a warm personal friend of her father 
and about once a month invited her to spend Saturday 
and Sunday under his roof. The lavish kindness 
which she met there, all that she saw and heard con- 
tributed not only to her happiness but also to her 
development of mind and heart. 

She met there Miss Julia Stuart, who became a life- 
long friend. Miss Stuart was the daughter of a New 
York artist, and an orphan. The Kellys out of sheer 
benevolence had in fact adopted her all but in name. 

Here is a picture of Mary's glad fellowship with her 
friend, drawn by her own hand. They had a copy of 
Longfellow's Hiawatha, which had just come from the 
press, and together they read it through one winter 
afternoon. ^^ We snuggled among the cushions of the 
big, dark green velvet sofa-settee, which was drawn 
up in front of a great wood fire always blazing during 
the winter in the fireplace of the long dining-room. 
' Major,' the St. Bernard, made a comfortable foot- 
stool, and ' Gyp,' the pet ring-dove, lighted on Julia's 
shoulder or strutted, cooing, up and down the back 
of the sofa. I never see the book, Hiawatha, without 
recalling the whole scene, — the great fire, the long 
windows on both sides, six of them in all, each with 
its beautiful wintry view of the grounds or the river, 
the organ, with its gilded pipes, at the end of the 
room, the sideboard, heavy with plate and decanters, 
and old Jim, the mulatto butler, with his frosty head, 

189 



stealing in and out like a shadow." The gracious 
influence of this Christian home must have a large 
place among the educative forces that shaped the 
character and life of Mary. 



V. Graduation, Chosen Pursuit, Baptism 
AND Marriage 

The last of June, 1857, before her seventeenth 
birthday, she graduated from the Academy at Hud- 
son. She calls it a '' pleasant school." Mr. Hague 
and the other teachers at least " taught me how to 
study." She was sorry to leave her dear friends and 
text-books. She would have gladly gone on for many 
years, but as that was impossible, she went back to 
Simsbury, near Tariffville, " to the cottage, to Mama 
and to all her perplexities." So she puts it. Still 
she acknowledges that she learned, during the year 
after her graduation, more or less about cooking, 
sewing and caring for the house. 

Immediately after her graduation from the Acad- 
emy she was quite determined to make teaching her 
life-work. Through her Uncle Gardner Colby, she 
made a verbal contract to teach Latin in a private 
school of high grade. But her father failed to appre- 
ciate the dignity of her chosen pursuit. He could not 
bear the thought that his only daughter should sup- 
port herself by any employment. She loved him 
tenderly ind since he so emphatically disapproved of 

190 



her teaching, she asked to be released from her en- 
gagement and reluctantly abandoned her purpose. 

At this time she was also earnestly considering the 
question of making an open profession of her faith 
and uniting with some church. All the circumstances 
of her life had led her to do her own thinking and she 
now determined that she would not become a Baptist 
just because her father and mother were. So she 
secured and attentively read anti-Baptistic books, that 
she might know, and carefully consider the views of 
scholarly pedo-Baptist authors, secretly desiring that 
those views might prove altogether convincing and 
satisfactory. But after having read and conned them 
with open mind, she was still in doubt. So she turned 
to the New Testament, concluding to follow its teach- 
ings whithersoever they might lead her. In 1858 a 
great revival of religion swept over the country. 
Young men from Hartford came to Tariffville and 
held a protracted meeting. She now decided to con- 
fess her Lord in what she believed to be His own 
appointed way, and asked the Baptist Church at 
Tariffville for baptism and church membership. She 
and her two brothers, on a lovely Sunday morning 
in April, were baptized in the Farmington River, that, 
not far away, flowed by their cottage in the wood. 
Whenever she called up this incident in her life, she 
claimed that she was not an hereditary Baptist, but 
by independent investigation became one from con- 
viction, against her natural inclination. 

To her great joy she spent six weeks of the follow- 

191 



ing summer with her Aunt Mary Colby at Newton 
Centre, Massachusetts. There she enjoyed the 
society of her cousins, one of whom was engaged to 
be married, another, a jolly fellow, had just graduated 
from Brown University, and another was to enter the 
University in the fall. Her aunt, to enhance the 
pleasure of them all, sent for her cousin, Agnes 
Mcjannett, with whom Mary had played in her child- 
hood and who was specially dear to her, taking in her 
affections the place of a sister. These young people, 
brimming over with all sorts of fun, had the freedom 
of the Colby buildings and grounds, and each day 
brought to them fresh delights. Mary felt that she 
had been ushered into an earthly paradise. The 
warm affection of her aunt, her occasional visits to her 
Great-grandmother Kendall and her Aunt Susie at 
Brookline, the mirthful group of which she was a 
conscious part, their daily round of jointly contrived 
amusements in the house, the barn, the orchard and 
the wood gave her a new view of family life. She 
declared it to be the happiest time of her girlhood. 
But this bright, delightful summer was soon over and 
Mary went back to her home and her stepmother at 
Simsbur}^ 

Near the close of 1859, ^ New York dry-goods firm 
requested her father to open for them a branch house 
in St. Louis. Yielding to their solicitation, he removed 
his family thither. They made the journey from 
their Connecticut home by easy stages, stopping for 
a few days at Ellerslie on the Hudson in the attrac- 

192 



tive home of the Kellys, spending Christmas in 
Detroit, tarrying a day or two in Chicago, which was 
then being lifted up in sections out of the mud by 
jack-screws, and travelling through Illinois on the 
thirty-first of December. To Mary, passionately 
fond of the hills and mountains of New England, the 
journey was unattractive and disappointing. She 
said, " I have never forgotten how utterly dreary 
and forlorn the winter landscape seemed to me as we 
rode through Illinois, always the same, sometimes a 
little station with a man or two and a dog on the 
platform, great prairies stretching to the horizon, 
partly rough stubble land, partly covered with snow. 
If this were the West, I saw all I wanted of it on the 
last day of the year 1859." Later in life this esti- 
mate was replaced by another, when she had explored 
the still greater West, gazed on the snow-crowned 
Sierra Nevada, the gorgeous wonders of the Grand 
Canon of the Colorado, the entrancing views of the 
Yosemite Valley and the sublimities of the Canadian 
Rockies. 

Arriving at St. Louis Saturday night, the family 
put up at the Planter^s Hotel. I was then pastor of 
the Second Baptist Church of that city. The next 
day the children with their father worshipped with 
us. That was the first time that I saw Mary. She 
was then a rosy-cheeked young woman with black 
hair, and black, or very dark, eyes. She was a good 
listener, such as always helps the preacher. Meeting 
her during that week at an evening party, she asked 

193 



for the reasons of certain declarations that I had made 
in my sermon on Sunday. I gave her the information 
that she sought and was delighted to find that I had 
a hearer who was so intelligent and inquisitive. She 
soon became a teacher in the Sunday School. She 
was given a class of girls from twelve to fifteen years 
of age and in a few weeks had the great joy of seeing 
them all converted and baptized. 

A few months passed by and I found myself mak- 
ing rather frequent calls at her father's house. In 
short, we loved and plighted to each other our undying 
affection. She was at that time nearly twenty-one; 
-)- I was twenty-nine. On April 23, 1861, we were 
married. The wedding was strictly private. Only 
a few of our respective families that chanced to be in 
St. Louis, together with some very intimate personal 
friends, were invited. A few weeks before, Mary's 
younger brother, to whom with unusual tenderness 
she was attached, had died. The state of the stricken 
family forbade any public ceremony. Rev. Melvin 
Jameson, of Alton, Illinois, a college mate of mine, 
officiated. At the time all Missouri was seething with 
political excitement and St. Louis was rent in twain 
between the Secessionists and Unionists. Already 
Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, under the fire of 
rebel guns had surrendered and threatening war 
clouds were gathering over our city. So we were 
wedded in dark and troublous days. 

There had been some violent outbreaks in St. Louis 
and such was the temper of the public mind that I 

194 



did not feel justified in being absent from my church 
and congregation for more than eight or ten days. So 
we began our honeymoon by taking an evening train 
for Cincinnati. 

Our first journey as husband and wife was marked 
by one ludicrous but disagreeable event. There were 
no sleeping cars, so we occupied two seats, bolstering 
ourselves up as comfortably as we could with cushions 
and shawls. We were just insensibly slipping into 
the land of nod, when the great watering hose, with 
which they had just filled the steam-boiler, carelessly 
left in a horizontal position, as the cars moved on, 
poured its full stream of water against the windows 
of our coach. The impact broke our window and 
drenched us from head to foot. Our plight though 
serious was at the same time so comic that we in- 
voluntarily broke out into laughter. My wife wore a 
poplin travelling dress, which, drying during the 
night, shrank amazingly. So when we reached our 
destination, early the next morning, her dress was so 
shrivelled up that she looked like anything but a bride. 
We at first were merry over our dilapidated appear- 
ance, and then patriotically thrilled as we looked on 
that great city of Southern Ohio, blossoming with 
star-spangled banners. When we left St. Louis the 
evening before, there were in that whole city only two 
national banners hung out to the public gaze, but at 
the rising of the sun we saw this neighboring city, 
where from every house, office, store and public build- 
ing the stars and stripes were flung to the breeze. 

195 



That universal, spontaneous expression of loyalty and 
patriotism stirred our souls to their depths, and that 
glad hour could never be forgotten. 

Having spent a delightful week in and around 
Cincinnati, we returned to St. Louis. When we 
reached the ferry landing opposite the city, we were 
quite surprised to find several deacons of the church 
there to greet us. We saw at a glance that they were 
sober and anxious. And this is the explanation of it. 
The Sunday evening before our marriage, unable any 
longer to hold in silence my patriotic views, even to 
preserve the public peace, I had preached an out and 
out sermon against secession and in favor of main- 
taining the Union. It was the first pulpit utterance 
of the kind heard in our city. And to cap the climax, 
we sang at the close of the service. My Country, 'tis 
of Thee, 

This, as might have been expected, incited to 
wrath the rougher and specially vindictive element 
of the Secessionists. On the Sunday night of our 
absence, a vengeful crowd gathered in the streets by 
my church to chastise me. They belonged to that class 
of Southern men who, in that day, answered an oppo- 
nent's arguments by putting a bullet through him. 
They began that Sunday night by throwing a brickbat 
through a window opposite the pulpit, but, learning in 
some way that I was not there, disappointed of their 
prey, they, cursing their luck, sullenly dispersed. My 
good deacons had come to the ferry to persuade me, if 
possible, to prolong my wedding tour, fearing that my 

196 



home-coming just then might court disaster. But I 
assured them that I had no fear, and contended that 
those comprising that mob, controlled by the floating 
gossip of the hour, had utterly mistaken the spirit of 
my sermon, and to correct their misapprehension, I 
would at once publish it. So, returning to my house, 
without a moment's delay, I sat down by my study- 
table and never rose till I had written out in full that 
offending discourse. The next morning it appeared 
in the Missouri Republican, a Democratic paper, a 
Semi-secession sheet, that all the disloyal eagerly 
read. The perusal of my sermon quelled, as I thought 
it would, for the time being, the mob spirit. This 
discourse, that disturbed somewhat our honeymoon, 
afterwards became a part of Moore's Rebellion 
Record, 



VI. Meeting New Responsibilities 

We must now note how the youthful bride met her 
new and onerous responsibilities. When she became 
the mistress of my home, she found there, heartily to 
greet her, an older sister of mine, Mrs. Lucy Whelan, 
who for months had presided over my household with 
rare tact and fidelity; also a daughter of my sister, a 
bright, active school-girl. Henry C. Leach, one of my 
young deacons, was also living with me. My sister 
and niece stayed with us for several weeks and were 
a great help and comfort to Mary. At last they re- 

197 



turned to their home in Western New York and the 
youthful deacon left, lured by enterprises farther 
West. We were now alone, and Mary was not only 
in name but in reality sole mistress of her new home. 

The house on Chestnut, second door from Thir- 
teenth, Street, opposite a livery stable, was one in a 
continuous brick block, built out to the sidewalk. 
Nearly all of St. Louis at that time was red brick, 
brick stores, brick houses, brick sidewalks. 

Our hired house had three stories with a two-story 
L, surrounded by a gallery in Southern fashion; this 
made the back rooms dark. In fact the whole house 
was a rather dismal place, with heavy old-fashioned 
furniture, and the light quite effectually shut out from 
the parlors by sombre rep curtains. When my bride 
found herself in sole possession, she at once made some 
changes that added not a little to my comfort and 
efficiency. My study had been on the ground floor, 
immediately over the basement kitchen, in the dreary 
back parlor, with only one window, looking out on a 
backyard, paved with those ubiquitous, ugly red bricks. 
She contended that such an unattractive, unpoetical 
environment must be a handicap to the making of 
decent sermons. So she transferred the books, chairs 
and study-table to the front room on the second floor, 
into which the sunlight streamed through two large 
windows. It was the most cheerful, heartsome room 
in the house. 

She herself often sat with me in the new study. 
Having acquired a smattering of the Greek grammar, 

198 



she joined me in reading the Greek New Testament. 
She says in her reminiscences of those days: " My 
husband did all the work and I learned quite a good 
deal following his reading. It was a pleasant break 
in the morning's duties for me to go into the study and 
look up words in the dictionary. After awhile I could 
read my verse in turn fairly well. We kept this up 
for a long time. I often brought in the baby to play 
on the rug while we read." This is a side light on 
" the elect lady " of the manse. 

But she allowed nothing to trench on her domestic 
duties. She kept her whole house firmly in hand and, 
without friction, it was well ordered. It was always 
tidy and attractive. Little, but important, things, the 
tasteful grouping of the furnishings and colors of a 
room, bouquets of flowers deftly arranged, made it 
inviting and restful, and it was ever irradiated by 
the sunshine of her heart. However humble in some 
respects it might have been, its atmosphere of love 
was manifest to all. 

When she came into my household I had an adopted 
boy, Thomas Calvert. He was an orphan that I 
found one day when making pastoral calls. He was 
a bright little fellow, full of mischief, and did, for a 
child, a good deal of clear thinking. The care of him 
was no inconsiderable burden, and I hesitated to lay 
it upon my young bride. But no objection to this 
responsibility fell from her lips. Gladly accepting 
the task as from her divine Lord, she took the child 
at once into her heart. She became to him a true, 

199 



affectionate mother, and he found rest and joy in her 
tender love. 

But the blood of poor Tommie was tainted with 
scrofula, which at first manifested itself in hip-disease. 
This was very painful and at times exceedingly offen- 
sive, yet for months she was his patient, gentle nurse. 
She was so full of sympathy for the suffering child 
that she suffered with him, taking up into herself his 
manifold distresses. From this attack he became a 
cripple and went on crutches the rest of his short 
life; but under her teaching, he very early became a 
true believer in Jesus as his Saviour, and in that faith 
he passed on to the ^^ better country.'' 

While she nursed and tenderly cared for the 
adopted, invalid boy, God blessed her with two suns 
of her own. As in the case of every true wife, capable 
of bearing children, maternity was to her an unmixed 
joy. The coming into her arms of healthful, sturdy 
children gave her exquisite happiness. But while her 
cares were thus multiplied and her responsibilities 
greatly augmented, she never lost, even for an hour, 
her sweet serenity of spirit. 

But her cares extended beyond her own servants 
and children. We tried to cultivate the grace of 
Christian hospitality, as we believed every Christian 
pastor should do. We often welcomed strangers to 
our home, and many times rich was our reward. We 
were delighted to entertain for several days Rev. Mr. 
Wiberg and wife of Sweden. For many years he was 
the celebrated leader of the Baptists of that country. 

200 



Every hour of their stay was a joy and blessing to us. 
I remember also that Dr. C. F. Tolman, a returned 
missionary from Assam, and Dr. Hiscox of New York 
at different times tarried with us for awhile and left 
behind them the pleasantest of memories. But in this 
life we have alternately light and shade, the sweet 
and the bitter. So a man claiming to have been a 
college mate of mine, of whom I had at the best but 
the dimmest recollection, pulled our door-bell and 
asked for entertainment. He was received and stayed 
for a full week. He was getting together a steamboat 
load of horses to take to market somewhere on the 
lower Mississippi. He made himself quite at home 
in my library. He read my Shakespeare and freely 
made annotations on the margins of the leaves, utterly 
spoiling for me the plays that he read. As much as 
we gloried in being hospitable, we were not sorry 
politely to say good-by to that college-bred horse- 
trader. 

An utter stranger came to us. He proved to be an 
excellent Christian man and rendered some service 
in a city mission that I was caring for. But he never 
seemed to work very hard. He was evidently poor 
in pocket and liked the abode into which he had 
unceremoniously drifted. He stayed for three months 
and then regretfully departed, when Mary, whose 
patience had never given away, diffidently and gently 
told him that she was sorry to disturb him, but that 
she must really have the room he occupied to enter- 



20 1 



tain some friends that were coming from a distance 
to see her. 

Mary was gifted in her practice of hospitality. 
She was naturally social and brimming over with good 
will. Widely read, she was an entertaining conver- 
sationalist. Bright and witty in repartee, she put her 
guests at ease and provoked their mirth. She had 
that priceless knack of making them feel perfectly at 
home. Being a glad hostess, she made glad guests. 

While efficiently caring for her new home in St. 
Louis, she now, as the pastor's wife, entered with 
augmented zeal into church work. She did not how- 
ever, young as she was and comparatively a stranger, 
assume to be a leader. Naturally modest and shrink- 
ing, she was glad to do whatever came to her hand, 
following the lead of those who were older and who for 
many years had shaped and guided the activities of 
the women in the church. The Civil War then raging, 
their labors became broader and more manifold than 
ever before. To the full measure of her strength, 
she bore her part with others in scraping lint and 
preparing bandages for the army surgeons, in feeding 
and clothing the refugees, both white and colored, 
that in great numbers streamed into St. Louis, and in 
caring for sick and wounded soldiers in the hos- 
pitals. She was intensely patriotic. The blood of 
the Pilgrim fathers ran in her veins. She hated 
slavery. She was ready to make any sacrifice to help 
her country then in its Gethsemane, sweating great 
drops of blood. She was constantly working to pro- 

202 



mote the welfare and happiness of the volunteer 
soldiers. She even saved all valuable papers and 
magazines that came into the house and distributed 
them among the soldiers encamped in, or near, the 
city, and often gave them to regiments marching by 
our door. Her fervid love of country at times broke 
forth into songs that appeared in influential journals 
and were widely read. 

She had of course some trials. Who, that is worth 
anything, has not? Some of the church born and bred 
in the South and strongly pro-slavery in sentiment, 
openly disapproved of her, and even refused to asso- 
ciate with her. She uncomplainingly bore such rude 
and senseless rebuffs. She expressed no resentment 
either in word or act. With quiet dignity she kept on 
about her own work; in fact, at times she seemed to 
be genuinely amused with conduct that was so mani- 
festly absurd. Those who thus refused to recognize 
her were very few in number; the great mass of the 
church heartily welcomed her. 

In her reminiscences of those days she says, " The 
whole city was like a house rocked by a cyclone. 
Every action and thought was influenced by the 
national crisis. It even affected my church life as 
wife of the pastor. When it was understood that he 
was to marry the newcomer from the East, who had 
been quite unguarded in answering leading questions 
as to her views on the burning problems of the day 
and utterly unsuspicious of the reputation of being an 
abolitionist, then so easily manufactured, the Southern 

203 



element rose up in protest. . . . Some of them received 
me kindly and were always my good friends, but 
others never spoke to me again." 

At times she was feverishly anxious for my safety. 
My life was threatened. Warnings from friendly 
sources were repeated again and again that there was 
a conspiracy to take it. I was urged not to go out 
nights. But she never asked me to flee from apparently 
imminent danger, but stood bravely by my side, 
urging me, in spite of any disaster that might come, 
to do faithfully my whole duty to our church, our 
adopted city and our country. 

One of the many scenes of which she was a part 
will reveal her flaming patriotism in the days of the 
war for the maintenance of the Union. She says: 
" When the nation was greatly depressed by a series 
of defeats and the criticisms of the grumblers, a 
meeting was called at Mercantile Library Hall to 
endorse the action of the government in carrying on 
the war. There was a great crowd of intensely loyal 
people packed into the largest hall in the city. We 
listened to speakers who passionately poured forth 
their thoughts, but the climax was reached when a 
woman in white, carrying the stars and stripes, sang- 
The Star-Spangled Banner, The whole assembly rose 
to their feet; handkerchiefs were waved; every 
demonstration seemed too powerless to express our 
swelling emotions. We broke down in tears as we 
joined in the chorus, which then meant so much to us. 



204 



" *Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave, 
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." 

They who did not live in those times may love their 
country and their flag, but we almost adored them. 
They then personified our life, our liberty and our 
sacred honor." 



VII. Change of Place and Occupation 

But our stay in St. Louis was hastening to an end. 
I had already suffered from fever which took me for 
three months from my pastorate. I proposed to 
resign, but my church refused to listen to it and voted 
me a year's absence. I took about eight months of it, 
spending that time with Mary and our children in 
Wisconsin and on the Southern Shore of Lake 
Superior. Having regained, as I believed, my usual 
vigor, I returned to my manifold labors as preacher 
and pastor in a city still torn by political factions 
and filled with helpless, suffering victims of the ruth- 
less war. For a time my work was a luxury and a 
joy, but a few months sufficed to show that a change 
to some different line of mental activity would be 
wisest and best. An altogether unexpected call to the 
chair of Homiletics, Church Polity and Pastoral Duties 
came to me from Newton Theological Institution. 
After long and anxious deliberation I decided to 
accept it. In the summer of 1866, I went with my 

205 



family to Newton Centre, Massachusetts. We stopped 
for a few days in Brockport, Western New York, 
where our dear adopted boy was attacked with brain 
disease and died. We sent his body back to St. Louis 
for burial in Belief on taine Cemetery and we went on 
our way to Newton with sad and chastened hearts. 
There, in the autumn, I began my work as a theolog- 
ical professor. 

To Mary this change of residence was most grate- 
ful. She was now near the place of her birth. Here 
lived her favorite aunt, Mrs. Gardner Colby. She 
and her generous husband, when we came, received 
us under their hospitable roof with open hearts and 
arms. We secured a dwelling-house not far from 
them, on the same street. To get away from the dust 
and turmoil of a great smoky city and sit down amid 
the quietude and beauty of Newton was to my wife 
an unspeakable delight. She at once took on new 
life. Her pen was soon busy. It broke out into song. 
She sang the glories of the old pine-tree that stood 
by the gate. To the delight of her little sons, she 
poured forth a dirge over the black Spanish hen, that 
died of a broken heart because a malodorous prowler 
devoured all her chicks; and at night she sang her 
babies to sleep with original lullabies. 

Her happiness was also greatly enhanced by her 
father's fourth marriage. He wooed and wedded in 
London a daughter of a retired officer of the English 
army. She was only three or four years older 
than Mary and was a lady of gentle, refined manners, 

206 



with a great, warm, loving heart. Stepmother and 
stepdaughter at once fell in love with each other, and 
in each other's society were the happiest of women. 
But this exquisite joy that came so suddenly into 
Mary's life as suddenly departed. A few months after 
her warm, cordial welcome into the family, this greatly 
beloved stepmother passed away. We all deeply 
suffered from her departure, but it was an especially 
bitter grief to her stepdaughter. 

During the first two years of my professorship at 
Newton another shadow at times rested on our happi- 
ness. By my harassing labors in St. Louis, my health 
had been considerably impaired. The trustees of 
Newton Theological Institution generously granted 
me a year's absence in Europe that I might regain 
my normal strength. Then the question arose whether 
I should go alone or take wife and children with me. 
This Mary herself decided. It would have been heroic 
for her to have remained at home, but it was still more 
heroic for her to go. We now had three children. The 
oldest was six, the youngest, a precious little daughter, 
was barely six months old. Yet Mary, insisting that 
I was too ill properly to care for myself, gently but 
resolutely insisted on going with me. She had her 
way, which proved to be wisest and best. 

Early in the spring of 1868, we took our priceless 
brood with the necessary bags and baggage and sailed 
to Europe. After spending a few days in England, 
we pushed on up the Rhine and finally made our way 
to Heidelberg. Here under the shadow of its cele- 

207 



brated university, near the ruins of its famous castle^ 
charmed with the fruitful, intensely cultivated valley 
of the Neckar and amid vine-clad hills we spent the 
summer of 1868. It was a beautiful and restful place. 
Each day furnished us some new, pleasant and instruct- 
ive experience and it was with some regret that in the 
early autumn we turned our backs on this ancient 
historic city and went to Berlin. Here for four or 
five months we settled down and together studied 
German, under the guidance of a very accomplished 
lady teacher. To test our acquisition of the language 
we translated into English a pamphlet, written by the 
German Baptist pastor of the city, giving a history 
of his church and setting forth its pressing financial 
needs. He used our translation in raising money ia 
the United States to carry forward his church enter- 
prise. We also orally translated a treatise of about 
sixty pages in which the author contended that Ger- 
man was destined to become the universal language, 
and that at no distant day Germany would politically 
dominate the whole world. We heard the same 
notions expressed and advocated at our table. And 
this was before the German Empire was founded. So 
what we hear now of the universal prevalence of 
German ^^ kultur " is hardly new. 

The current of our life was now divided and for 
three or four months flowed in two channels. I met 
at Berlin some American students, who were planning 
to visit Egypt, Palestine and Syria, and they urged 
me to accompany them. This, at first blush, I decided 

208 



that I could not do. It would be akin to cruelty to 
leave Mary alone in a strange land to care for our 
children, while I made such an enticing trip. But 
when she learned of the invitation, she insisted that 
I must accept it; that probably I would never have 
another such opportunity. I finally reluctantly 
yielded to her wishes. We went first to Dresden, 
where she and the children were established in comfort- 
able quarters. When they had become wonted to their 
surroundings, I joined the party from Berlin on their 
way to the Orient. 

This self-forgetfulness for my sake strikingly reveals 
Mary's character. From the day of our betrothal she 
was always laboring, often quite regardless of her own 
comfort, to enhance my happiness and usefulness. I 
strove to pay her in the same coin, but she manifestly 
outstript me. 

Within ten days after I left her in Dresden our 
oldest son came down with the measles. The family 
that kept the pension were unduly frightened. She 
had instanter to seek other accommodations, which she 
speedily found to her own advantage. She was always 
resourceful in trying exigencies. When this flurry 
was over she determined to get, in my absence, a fair 
mastery of German. She bought Liibke on Art, read 
ten pages of it every day and visited the Art Gallery 
two or three times a week to apply to the paintings 
and sculpture there the principles of art that she had 
learned. So while she was acquiring the language 
she was at the same time enlarging her knowledge of 

209 



art. She also read German novels and emplo3^ed 
a German nurse, who was absolutely ignorant of 
English, and so could speak with her only in German. 
When I returned from the East she could speak 
German fluently. Moreover, indulging her propensity 
for travel, she had explored the beauties of Saxon 
Switzerland. 

After nearly four months, — the longest period of 
separation from each other during our married life, — 
I returned to my wife and children. In Athens I 
parted with my companions in travel. They went to 
Constantinople, I to Syracuse, Sicily, and from there 
up through Italy, and over the Alps in a diligence to 
Zlirich. There I met Mary and our little ones, who 
a few days before had come over from Dresden to 
meet me. All except the baby were quite well. Her 
stupid nurse had fed her ham and she nearly died 
of cholera infantum, but was now happily convales- 
cent. Our cup of joy overflowed. Mary, narrating 
her experiences, said that every Monday morning 
but one since my departure she received a letter from 
me. This was a happy but strange incident. I was 
going farther and farther from Dresden, making no 
plan to have my missives reach her at any given time, 
but He who determines the fall of a sparrow so di- 
rected events that the lonely wife and mother received, 
save once, a letter from me each Monday morning for 
about four months. 

We soon went over to Lucerne and to neighboring 
cities and cantons. Together we walked to the top 

2IO 



of Rigi and, before reaching the summit, were caught 
in a snow-storm which made walking difficult, es- 
pecially for a lady. We stayed over night at the tip- 
top hotel, that in the morning we might see the great 
snow-capped mountains flushed and gilded with the 
first rays of the rising sun. It was an entrancing 
sight. But Mary was so lame from the previous day's 
struggles through the snow that she had to be carried 
down the mountain on a litter. But she greatly en- 
joyed this novel experience. 

At last we reluctantly turned our backs on these 
scenes of mingled beauty and sublimity and went 
westward to Berne, Geneva, Lyons and Paris and 
northward to London and Liverpool, stopping for a 
time at these great centres of life, that we might 
learn something of the peculiarities of each, and then 
across the Atlantic to the land that we loved above all 
others. We reached our home at Newton Centre, 
Massachusetts, in August, 1869. 

The duties laid aside about sixteen months before, 
were now resumed. My health was fully restored. 
Work in the study, the classroom and the pulpit, was 
a joy. Our old house with its surroundings, on the 
side of Institution Hill, was a constant pleasure. 
Every plant in the garden, every tree, shrub and 
flower in the yard augmented our happiness. The 
plumage and song of every bird in the leafy grove 
hard by charmed us. Those were halcyon days for 
us both. 

Mary became deeply interested in the theological 

211 



students, and whenever opportunity offered gladly 
welcomed them to our house and table. She did what 
she could to prepare the wives of the married students 
for their future responsibilities, frequently talking 
over with them the unique opportunities that they 
would have to do good and to make effective the 
labors of their husbands. She also resumed her writ- 
ing both in prose and verse. Her pen was more pro- 
lific than ever before, while her children with their 
unfolding powers of body and mind filled her with 
unspeakable satisfaction. 

But there were duties beyond her own home and 
the Theological Institution to which she gave herself. 
She recognized the claims of the kingdom of God as 
supreme. Always profoundly interested in missions 
she now worked and wrote for them with renewed zeal. 
It was at Newton Centre that the Woman's American 
Baptist Foreign Mission Society was formed and she 
was one of its constituent members. 



VIII. Life in Brooklyn, Chicago, 
Salem and Granville 

But to her lasting regret, her varied activities at 
Newton were finally interrupted. There sprang up 
within me an intense longing to get back into the 
pulpit and pastorate. Three fields at once opened to 
me, Rochester, Cambridge and Brooklyn. I decided 
for Brooklyn and became pastor of the Strong Place 

212 



Baptist Church of that city. This proved to have 
been an unfortunate choice. Not that the post was 
not an important one; I spent three prosperous years 
there. During that brief period two hundred and 
seventy-two were added to the church, one hundred 
and thirty-three by letter and one hundred and thirty- 
nine by baptism. But Mary had there an utter 
nervous breakdown. Some occurrences in the parish 
worried her. There were some poor in the church for 
whose comfort and betterment she assiduously 
worked; this she greatly enjoyed. She taught the 
infant class in the Mission Sunday School, was gently 
but persistently pressed into taking the lead in some 
of the women's benevolent societies, and before we 
apprehended the insidious approach of danger, she had 
almost fatally overtaxed herself. We now learned for 
the first time that the air of the ocean had greatly 
over-excited her nervous system. She was laid help- 
less upon her bed. We almost despaired of her life. 
One Sunday morning, to my great surprise, she spoke 
only German. When asked why she did so, she re- 
plied that she could not call to mind any English 
words. In alarm I summoned my physician, who 
allayed my fears by saying that it was merely a symp- 
tom of her nervous disease, that would soon pass 
away. As the evening approached she began to speak 
English again. But the physician now assured me 
that she could not continue to live in Brooklyn, that 
to reside there much longer would be fatal to her. I 
was soon called to the Second Baptist Church of 

213 



Chicago, and began preaching there in the spring of 
1876. 

In the meantime, Mary having thrown off most 
of her usual burdens, had partially recovered her 
strength and was once more taking the oversight and 
care of her household. After spending a few weeks 
in a quiet retreat on the Hudson, she started West 
with our four children, stopping a few days for further 
rest and recreation with relatives in LeRoy, Western 
New York. She then went on with our children to 
Marquette, Michigan, on the Southern Shore of Lake 
Superior. Leaving, for a short vacation, my new 
charge at Chicago, I joined her there. She was happy 
amid these new scenes. She was already learning the 
limitations of her bodily strength and, when she 
strictly observed them, she still found zest in living. 

But her nervous collapse in Brooklyn was the be- 
ginning of a new and marked epoch in her life. For 
eleven years after she was unable to hear a lecture or 
sermon. Occasionally she tried to sit through an 
ordinary church service, but before she had listened 
to the preacher ten minutes she was compelled to fly 
the sanctuary. She said, " I seem to be unable to have 
a man talk to me cojttinuously." While she deplored 
her enforced absence from public worship, she declared, 
" I have learned from experience that when one 
cannot attend church, it is quite possible, with great 
personal profit, to worship God at home." Yet after 
her death, I found in her commonplace book a 
pathetic song from her pen in which she sorrowfully 

214 



expresses a keen sense of her great loss in being de- 
prived of worshipping on Sundays with God's people. 

" Sweet Sabbath bells, your distant voice 
Is calling, through the dewy air, 
On all to worship and rejoice. 
In God's own house; for He is there. 

" Yet I alone and silent bide. 
Far from the courts of prayer and praise, 
. I hear the vespers of the thrush 
Ring clearly through the evening haze. 

" Like him I lonely sing to God, 
From the dark corner where I dwell, 
And He who hears the choir's sweet song 
Can hear my faltering voice as well. 

" He knows that with a thankful heart 
My offering of praise I bring. 
As joining with the warbling thrush, 
' Praise God, for God is good, I sing.' " 



My short outing on the shore of the great Lake 
was too soon over. I returned to my duties in 
Chicago, leaving Mary and our children to linger a 
little longer in the bracing atmosphere of the North. 
When their vacation was over they took a steamer for 
Chicago. The second morning after, at the breakfast 
table, glancing at my newspaper, I read that the 
steamer had foundered with all on board. I hastened 
to the office of the steamboat company and found the 
authorities there quite confident that the rumor was 

215 



unfounded. Still with feverish anxiety I waited for 
definite news. About noon Mary telegraphed me that 
they had met with a mishap but all were safe. So my 
half day of agony ended in great gladness. The next 
day we all, a happy, joyful family, entered our new 
Chicago home. The open-hearted, open-handed mem- 
bers of my church had quite unostentatiously filled 
our house with all things necessary for our comfort. 
They gave us a warm, hearty, royal welcome. 

On December 24th our third son and last child was 
born. For a long time Mary's vitality was at a low 
ebb. Towards spring, while slowly gaining strength 
she began to ride out, first around only one square, then 
around two or more, and finally to the nearest parks, 
where the early flowers and flowering shrubs were just 
bursting into bloom, and the birds, that had just 
returned from the sunny south, amid leafing branches 
were pouring forth their passionate songs. Such 
scenes and sounds gave her great delight, inspired her 
with hope and invigorated both mind and body. 

During Mary's long illness. Aunt Lizzie Aiken, the 
missionary of my church, often came in to cheer her 
up. In all that she said and did, she shov/ed such tact, 
wit and wisdom that Mary was both charmed and 
captivated. Her comforter was a rare spirit, keen in 
intellect and unusually rich in Christian experience. 
Without designing to do so, in free, informal chit- 
chats. Aunt Lizzie gave in fragments the salient points 
of her strangely eventful life. Mary was so deeply 
impressed with it that she said to me, " Somebody 

216 



ought to write and publish the life of this remarkable 
woman. And any one that does it must do it now 
before Aunt Lizzie passes away. It can never be 
written after her death. To her biographer she must 
tell her own story." 

Very soon Mary determined to write it herself. 
She asked her physician if she could safely undertake 
it. At first he shook his head, but noticing how 
anxious she was to do it, he decided that she might 
attempt it, if she would work at her task only twenty 
minutes a day and at the end of the allotted time would 
resolutely lay it aside. She joyfully accepted these 
prescribed conditions, and, entering on her chosen 
work, soon proved that one could accomplish much 
by faithfully working but twenty minutes in every 
twenty-four hours. When her considerate and sym- 
pathetic physician saw that she was rather benefited 
than injured by what she did, he doubled the time. 
Attentively watching his patient, he soon permitted 
her to write an hour a day and at last he made the 
time an hour and a half. On this last allowance of 
time, she triumphantly finished The Story of Aunt 
Lizzie Aiken. No one who reads it would ever 
suspect that the author was ill when she wrote it. 

Her procedure in writing it adds interest to it. 
Aunt Lizzie at appointed times told little by little the 
whole story of her life, while Mary closely questioned 
her that, as far as possible, she might get an accurate 
knowledge of all the facts. Of these conversations 
she took copious notes. Moreover, for some years, 

217 



Aunt Lizzie had kept a diary in which was a fairly 
full record of her manifold experiences with her com- 
ments on them. This she put into Mary's hand 
together with many letters that she had received from 
those who "had intimate knowledge of her varied 
activities. Mary also corresponded with many who, 
in past years, had been conversant with the labors 
of Aunt Lizzie. By this correspondence she verified, 
corrected and elucidated what Aunt Lizzie had related. 
Having at last all the evidence before her she carefully 
analyzed and sifted it that she might get at the exact 
truth. 

She now began to write out the unique story of this 
marvellous Christian worker. We have already 
noticed the difficulties that she pluckily overcame in 
completing it. She sent the manuscript to Jansen and 
McClurg of Chicago, who at once accepted it but in- 
sisted that she should cut it down one-fourth. This 
was a rigorous exaction on a sick woman but she 
uttered no protest. What the publishers asked was 
soon done, but to the detriment of the book, since 
in its condensation much of the most interesting 
illustrative material was cut out. It however proved 
to be a good seller. But the author refused to receive 
any royalty from it. She said that she wrote it 
simply to help Aunt Lizzie. One hundred and ten 
dollars from it came into her hand. This she turned 
over to the Foreign Mission Society as the gift of Aunt 
Lizzie. 

The first edition was soon exhausted. Then Miss 

218 



Ellen Sprague, a close friend of both Mary and Aunt 
Lizzie, bought the plates and, with the full approval 
of all parties interested, proceeded to issue the book 
as her own private enterprise. Her laudable object 
was to accumulate by the sale of the book a fund for 
Aunt Lizzie, who in caring for the poor could never 
keep any money, but generously, without a thought 
for herself, gave away all that she had. Miss Sprague 
was a shrewd, enterprising business woman, and was 
largely successful in her venture. When Aunt Lizzie 
died she had three thousand dollars which came from 
the sale of her biography. This entire sum she left 
by will to the Second Baptist Church of Chicago, that 
ardently loved and greatly honored her, and which 
for many years she had served with rare fidelity and 
unusual efficiency. 

The recipients of this bequest, I am sure, will ever 
gratefully remember Aunt Lizzie Aiken, Mary Eleanor 
Anderson and Ellen Sprague. Through their united 
service they created this fund. Neither of them alone 
did this. It was achieved by three loving hearts, 
each one of whom, forgetful of self, sought to serve 
others. 

Mary at last so far recovered her health that she 
enjoyed doing her ordinary duties. She efficiently 
directed her household. She gloried in her children. 
Like the Roman Cornelia she regarded them as her 
jewels. She made home attractive for them and care- 
fully watched over the development of their bodies, 
minds and hearts. She wielded over them a queenly 

219 



authority to which they yielded without being con- 
scious of any restraint. She swayed and controlled 
them with the mightiest of all influences, the effective 
and delightful influence of love. She entered with 
zest into, and helped them in, all their healthful, 
innocent sports. She led them to read books that 
interested and delighted them, and told them Bible 
stories. In this she was an expert. She knew what 
the stories meant and had the imaginative power to 
narrate them vividly. She selected books for them 
that fascinated them with biblical biography and 
history and so implanted deep in their minds and 
hearts a love for the Bible. She did but little work 
outside her own home during my pastorate in 
Chicago. Still, while unable even to attend the meet- 
ings of the church, she. had the liveliest interest 
in all that it was doing for the advancement of the 
Kingdom of God both at home and abroad. For 
this she prayed and gave and wrote. 

After a pastorate of two years, as delightful as 
ever fell to the lot of any preacher, I was called to the 
presidency of the University of Chicago — now 
styled the Old University — and accepted the 
position. We left our home on the west side of 
Chicago, removing to Kenwood, Hyde Park, where 
we first occupied a large, rambling brick house on 
Greenwood Avenue, near Forty-seventh Street. The 
house was airy and cool in summer, but shivering cold 
in the winter. To add to our distress we found our- 
selves in financial straits. Some gentlemen who 

220 



promised to see that my salary was paid evidently 
forgot the verbal contract that they had made, and so 
I had a plenty of hard work but '^ short commons." 
Among Mary's notes I find this naive testimony to 
our financial pinch. She says, " One time when I had 
absolutely nothing to give to our woman's missionary 
work, a little story that I sent to the 5^. Nicholas, 
brought me a return of twenty-five dollars; a part of 
this I spent for necessary clothes for my little girls 
and had enough for my yearly donation — so we were 
helped along." Soon after she was surprised to learn 
that her Uncle Gardner Colby had left her by will an 
annuity of two hundred dollars. It was a great and 
wholly unexpected kindness that thereafter tided her 
over many a financial strait and filled her heart with 
gratitude to her generous benefactor. 

In 1 88 1 her father rented an estate on Shrewsbury 
River, N. J., not far from Red Bank. He renovated 
the house and refurnished it, put into the barn a 
comfortable family carriage and a span of fine horses, 
cleaned up the grounds and made the place very at- 
tractive and homelike. He invited Mary and her 
family to spend the summer with him. With great 
gladness she responded to his warm and urgent in- 
vitation, and before the Commencement of the Uni- 
versity went to him in New Jersey. He was of course 
very happy to have his only daughter once more under 
his roof and at his table, especially since she came with 
her five children. He celebrated the Fourth of July 
with feasting and elaborate fireworks. But his 

221 



expectation of a season of social enjoyment with his 
daughter and her family came to a sad and sudden 
end. Having months before suffered a slight attack 
of paralysis, from which he seemed in large measure to 
have recovered, it slowly and insidiously crept upon 
him once more. He became restless and sleepless and 
five or six days after the festivities of the glorious 
Fourth, with those around him whom he most loved, 
he passed away. This was a crisis in Mary's life. 
She had not been called to pass through a trial so 
great and bitter since she had grown up to girlhood 
and womanhood. But her grief was assuaged by her 
Christian resignation. She had anticipated great joy 
in spending two or three months with her father; 
for a few days that joy was hers, but it quickly ended 
in tears. Still she was able to say through her tears, 
not as I will but as Thou wilt. 

She very tenderly loved her father, still she quite 
clearly understood his character, both its excellences 
and its defects, and has left an appreciative and just 
estimate of him. She says, " My father was a man 
of lively affections, much beloved by many friends 
and his kindred, always sympathetic and of a generous 
nature, ready to believe in every new business enter- 
prise offered to him, too optimistic in spite of his 
many failures; though to be sure, he made and lost 
more than one fortune. To me he was mother as well 
as father. We knew and trusted each other in perfect 
love. He carried, through a life of many changes and 
great sorrows, the light of a spiritual faith with a 

222 



steady hand. He always conducted family prayers 
and asked a blessing on our meals. He taught us 
from the Bible Sunday afternoons regularly and was 
deeply anxious for our conversion. While far from 
what is called Puritanical in either his early training 
or his own ideas, he believed profoundly the truths 
of the Christian religion, and, social as he was by 
nature, lived the pure, upright life of a child of God. 
Such men are the salt of the earth. They make no 
pretensions to sanctity, they are the life of any circle 
to which they belong, but they keep themselves from 
the evil of the world and are a blessing to their 
families and their country." 

By means which her father left to Mary we finally 
built a good house at Fiftieth Street and Greenwood 
Avenue. Here our family life was all that heart 
could wish. As to activities outside the household, 
for nearly eight years we toiled unremittingly to free 
from debt and build up an unendowed university that 
seemed to have but few friends. The debts were an 
inheritance into which I came, having been unwisely 
contracted during the administrations of my prede- 
cessors in office. The floating debts, amounting to 
more than thirty thousand dollars, were paid, but the 
mortgage debt of nearly two hundred thousand dollars 
we failed to cancel. 

During this time of stress, Mary gave herself mainly 
to the education of our children, all of whom were in 
school of one grade or another. So far as she was 
able she entered with delight into th^ subjects they 

223 



were called upon to master and in their linguistic 
studies often lent a helping hand. At times she enter- 
tained in our home both the faculty and students 
of the University, always eager to do what she could 
to promote and enrich their social life. As a bur- 
lesque on a Greek letter fraternity, a band of students 
organized the ^^ Eta Pi Society." Perhaps their main 
object was not simply to eat, but at times they met 
to feast on pies. Mary caught the spirit of their 
innocent fun and sometimes for their delectation sent 
them from her own kitchen pies of various kinds and 
shapes. Once under her own roof she gave them eight 
courses of different kinds of pie. From public func- 
tions, both on account of unsteady nerves and natural 
modesty, she instinctively shrank; still, when the 
annual receptions of the University were held, she 
bore her part in that unconventional, graceful manner, 
which is the natural effluence of genuine culture. 

For a few months in 1885 and 1886, I served, as 
pastor, the . First Baptist Church of Salem, Massa- 
chusetts. But as that quaint old city sits hard by 
the ocean, Mary's experience in Brooklyn was to a 
considerable degree repeated. Her nerves were over- 
excited by the sea air. Her whole history, while in 
that historical city of Roger Williams and the witches^ 
can be written in three words: she was sick. Much 
of the time she was under the watchful care of a 
physician. In the summer of 1886, we carried her 
to the cars and took her up to New London, New 
Hampshire. A few hours after drinking in the moun- 

224 



tain air her depression of spirit was gone, her nerves 
calmed and she began to ramble with pleasure among 
the hills. It now became clear that she could not 
continue to live in Salem. 

The first of January, 1887, I became president of 
Denison University and we set up housekeeping at 
Granville, Ohio. Mary's health had greatly improved 
and she thoroughly enjoyed the hills and fertile 
valleys of Licking County. To help on her return- 
ing vigor, during the pleasant days of summer and 
autumn, she took long top-buggy rides with me after 
a gentle but spirited horse. The beauty of the land- 
scape, the trees, the flowers delighted her. 

Before our house, on the hillside, was a large yard, 
where she cultivated blooming shrubs, roses, crocuses, 
hyacinths and other common flowers. She could never 
forget seeing from her window, in early spring, a 
green, imsophisticated student, from '' Ole Virginny," 
he said, get down on his hands and knees and fondly 
kiss some crocuses that had just pushed their fresh, 
bright faces up through the soil. At the side of the 
house was a large garden, where grew plentifully vege- 
tables, small fruits, peaches and apples. To furnish 
sweet butter for our table, rich cream for our straw- 
berries, raspberries and peaches and ice cream to cool 
our tongues in hot days, a fawn-like Jersey cow 
grazed in a pasture hard by. But Mary's activities 
as usual reached out beyond her own home. She 
planted ivy by the bare brick walls of the main col- 
lege building and sedulously cared for it, hoping that 

225 



at no distant day it might in summer hide their ugli- 
ness with a mantle of green. She made flower beds 
in front of the college buildings to render the campus 
more attractive and to give at least a hint of the 
importance of esthetic culture. She often generously 
entertained the students of the college and at times 
many of the church and people of the village. More- 
over she joined hands with the Baptist women of the 
State, working heart and soul with them for the ad- 
vancement of missions both domestic and foreign. 

But our stay in Granville was only three years. I 
left that excellent school wholly of my own choice. 
I naturally drifted back to Chicago with its larger 
life, where I had so long worked, and took the chair 
of Homiletics, Church Polity and Pastoral Duties, in 
the Baptist Union Theological Seminary at Morgan 
Park. Here we built a house and, as a recreative 
aside, cultivated flowers, making roses a specialty. In 
this Mary took a leading part and our success was 
unexpectedly great. 

Barely two years passed by when our Theological 
Seminary became the Divinity School of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago. Since we could not, like a snail, 
take our house with us, we continued to live at Mor- 
gan Park, and each day I made quite a journey to 
reach my classroom, utilizing the time while going 
in furbishing the lecture I was about to deliver. At 
last we abandoned our rural home with its trees and 
blossoming shrubs and fragrant roses, and lived in 
the city, cooped up in some hotel with its monotonous 

226 



and tasteless meals, or in some apartment, whose 
front windows looked out on a paved street, and whose 
rear windows revealed our own and our neighbor's 
back yards with their trumpery and variegated clothes 
horses. While work in the University absorbed and 
delighted me, Mary revelled in books, wrote to help 
on philanthropies and missions and dreamed of fields 
and groves and flowers and longed for the coming 
of my vacation. If it came in the winter, we usually 
sought rest in the sunny South or amid ever-bloom- 
ing flowers in Southern California. 

IX. Retirement in New England 

After twelve years of service I laid down the active 
duties of my professorship in the University, under 
a rule of administration, just then adopted, that all 
professors must be retired at seventy. I was how- 
ever seventy-one, and in perfect health, doing the best 
work of my life. I was made professor Emeritus, — 
a barren honor! — and was at liberty to go where I 
pleased. So, since both of us were specially fond of 
the hills and mountains and society of New England, 
we determined to make our future home there. But 
while Newton Centre, Massachusetts, became our 
political domicile, we spent some of our winters in 
Washington or Florida or California, and, for several 
years, our summers in New Hampshire. Mary bought 
a very pleasant house in New Hampton. She revelled 
in its gardens of flowers and vegetables, its umbra- 

22J 



geous grove of oak, ash and maple and its abundant 
small fruits and apples. The amphitheater of verdant 
hills and wooded mountains were an imceasing pleas- 
ure, while the plain but cozy library room, with its 
open fire on chilly rainy days, was an alluring re- 
treat. She was thrice happy in welcoming her chil- 
dren and grandchildren under our roof; but as it was 
extremely difficult to secure help in the kitchen, she 
at last, finding the very hospitality that she so 
greatly enjoyed too great a burden for her sensitive 
nerves, sold the place that she had greatly improved 
and so keenly enjoyed. 

Beginning in 1909, we spent five summers on Bear 
Island, one of the larger of the numerous islands of 
Lake Winnepesaukee, one season in the hotel there, 
four in a rustic cottage hard by the Lake. Each 
summer I carried to that quaint, unplastered house, 
with its cheerful fireplace, an armful of the newest 
and best books and together we feasted upon them. 
It was a free and easy and restful nook. Bush and 
blossom and berry and bird enticed us. The moun- 
tain scenery about us was a constant inspiration. 
Often the evening skies flamed with gorgeous sunsets. 
At night, when the heavens were cloudless, the re- 
flected light of the moon or stars stretched in broad 
bands of rippling silver across the Lake. The laps- 
ing waters on the shore lulled us to slumber. It 
was a sort of earthly paradise. The joys of litera- 
ture and religion within, the wonderful revelations of 
God through His works without. 

228 



During the period from 1904 to 1915, I gave to 
the press five books. Into all my labor in writing 
them Mary entered with the deepest interest. Her 
counsel was invaluable. She was a sane, sharp, sug- 
gestive critic. 

In 191 1 our Golden Wedding was celebrated. It 
fell on Sunday, the 23rd of April. To avoid all possi- 
ble offence our children decided to observe it on the 
22nd and the 24th. The family was then unbroken. 
While some of the five children lived in Chicago and 
some in New England, they all came to share in this 
consummation of a long and happy married life. 

The Golden Wedding celebration was held April 
22nd at the house of our second son, Elbridge R. 
Anderson, on Main Street, Wenham, Massachusetts. 
Here in the afternoon, an elegant buffet luncheon was 
served and an admirable group picture of the entire 
household was taken. Speeches were made by the 
different members of the family and a beautiful orig- 
inal poem was read by our older daughter, Mrs. Lucy 
C. Owen, and our oldest son. Professor Frederick 
L. Anderson, read Sidney Lanier's The Golden Wed- 
ding, Letters and telegrams were sent to us by ab- 
sent friends, also some presents and flowers. Among 
the latter were twelve fragrant roses from Mrs. Sophie 
Burns, who was Mary's bridesmaid. Both bride and 
bridesmaid, after fifty eventful years, were still well 
and happy and the one was greeting the other with 
fragrant flowers. 

On the 24th the Golden Wedding Reception was 

229 



held at the house of our oldest son, 169 Homer Street, 
Newton Centre. Here, besides our own immediate 
family, many relatives and old friends, with whom in 
the church and in institutions of learning we had been 
in former years associated, personally greeted us. To 
see all our children together once more, accompanied 
by some of our grandchildren, and to receive con- 
gratulatory missives from those that were absent was 
no common joy. It gave us both a new grip^ on life. 



X. Mary's Literary Work 

But our sketch of Mary's career would be quite 
incomplete if I should fail to call especial attention 
to her preeminent activity. During her entire married 
life she was always busy with her pen. She did not 
however write merely for the sake of writing. She 
never seemed to be in the least ambitious for literary 
distinction, but always wrote with some important 
practical end in view. 

She was, as we have already seen, intensely in- 
terested in missions. For several years, both while 
in Chicago and in Newton, her contributions, both 
prose and poetry, so constantly appeared in the 
columns of The Helping Hand, that many of its read- 
ers thought she was on the editorial staff. The sum 
total of her articles in this mission paper would make 
a good-sized volume. She also contributed to The 
King's Messengers to Heathen Lands a series of six 

230 



articles, which fascinatingly set forth the remarkable 
career of a Shan boy, I Tway. She did this espe- 
cially to awaken the interest of the young in foreign 
missions. 

To implant in the hearts of the children of our 
churches a love for the heathen and to stimulate them 
to give and work for their salvation, she wrote dia- 
logues presenting both to the ear and the eye the 
doctrines and customs of heathen lands. The chil- 
dren, when reciting one of these dialogues, were 
dressed in the costumes of the country represented. 
Copies of the dialogues were multiplied, so that they 
were repeated in many different churches. A mission- 
ary from Burma, listening to one that- set forth the 
notions and customs of that country, said, ^^ She has 
lived there, has she not? " Of course she had not, 
but she had diligently studied the society and scenery 
of the lands where our missions are planted, and hav- 
ing a vivid historical imagination, she was able truth- 
fully to set forth not only their religious teachings 
but also faithfully to depict their daily life. She 
sometimes said to me, " I have an ardent longing to 
sail up the Irawadi River. I know just how it looks 
and I know all the principal towns and cities on its 
banks. I can shut my eyes and see it and them." 

She was also deeply interested in Home Missions. 
Before me lie six tracts of hers, published by the 
Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society of 
Chicago. One of them, general in its character, is on 
The Religious Condition of Children in the United 

231 



States; the remaining five, more specific, are on the 
condition of Mormon children, of Chinese children, of 
immigrant children, of colored children and of Indian 
children in this country. These tracts present, for 
popular effect, the main facts in each case in a clear, 
simple, forceful style. She also left a paper on Mor- 
monism, read before the Home Mission Circles of the 
different evangelical denominations of Newton Centre, 
Massachusetts. It is a strong, incisive essay, grasping 
and clearly unfolding the innermost principles of that 
corrupt and corrupting apostacy. 

When caring for her children, like any fond mother, 
she sang to them, not often the ordinary nursery lulla- 
bies, but she composed cradle songs as she crooned 
her darling infants to sleep. At last I said to tier, 
" Those lullabies are so good, you better write them 
down and preserve them." She acted on the hint 
and the final outcome was the volume. New Songs 
for Little People, published by Lee and Shepard, Bos- 
tion, 1874, and illustrated by Lizzie B. Humphrey. 
It sold well. The royalty that canie from it was a 
great happiness to the author. The consciousness of 
possessing money coined out of her nursery ditties was 
a new and exceedingly gratifying experience. The 
publishers finally purchased her rights in the book 
and continued to issue it in conjunction with other 
poems. Sixteen of these songs, with her consent, were 
incorporated in The Normal Music Course by Tufts 
and Holt, seven in the First Reader, nine in the Sec- 



232 



on'd Reader, prepared for the use of the public 
schools. 

She also wrote extensively for the religious jour- 
nals. In The Christian Times, now The Standard, she 
discussed with freshness and vigor Sunday School 
songs, Sunday School literature and the importance 
of taking children to church. She not only pointed 
out glaring defects in the selection of songs and books 
for the children, but suggested the remedies for them. 
She also wrote a series of articles for The Standard, 
under the caption. Half Hours with Aunt Anna, in- 
structing young girls how to care for their rooms, their 
bodies, minds and hearts and how to regard and treat 
their parents. 

When Dr. Bright was the editor of The Examiner 
and Chronicle, for a long time she was a regular con- 
tributor to its columns, one of his favorite correspond- 
ents. She first wrote a series of letters over the 
pseudonym, Dorothy Doe. They were addressed to 
Dick, her supposed son, who was about to enter the 
ministry. She discussed in these letters important 
practical questions pertaining to the Christian life, 
such as the conduct of church members, lazy Chris- 
tians, what sermons should be in thought and style 
and how they should be delivered if the preacher 
would interest and stir up those in the pews. 

These articles were very popular, but a prominent 
pastor, sharply dissenting from some of her views on 
preaching, tartly replied to her and declared that her 
masquerading as a woman was to any one with eyes 

233 



an obvious sham. He called upon her to throw off 
her disguise and come out into the open. He, how- 
ever, soon found out his awkward mistake, when she, 
bubbling over with mirth, punctured his hostile stric- 
tures and declared that if he had anything further to 
say she would gladly waive a woman's privilege of 
having the last word. 

For the same journal she wrote a captivating ac- 
count of What Two Small Boys Saw in Europe. This 
was for the entertainment and instruction of children. 
Among other things, she drew a vivid picture of what 
the people in the larger German cities do at Christ- 
mas time. She painted to the life their great bazars, 
their vast stores of toys, and praised their enchanting 
music. 

For a whole year, while she was in Europe, she was 
a regular correspondent of The Christian Era of Bos- 
ton. Her letters from Berlin, Dresden and Switzer- 
land, were full of important information and suggest- 
ive criticism. And these references indicate but a 
part of her journalistic activities. 

She delighted at times to try her hand on more 
difficult literary tasks. She left a charmingly written 
essay on Chrysostom's Last Days; also a translation 
of Theremin's discussion of What is the best Sermon? 
in which he maintains that that sermon is best which 
pleases God best. There also lies before me her dis- 
sertation on the oldest Christian hymn, by Clement 
of Alexandria, followed by her translation of it from 



234 



the Greek. And here is also her translation of Ber- 
nard's Salve Caput Cruentatum, having the same num- 
ber of syllables as the original. It is not only a faith- 
ful translation but it reflects the free, vigorous poetical 
movement of the Latin hymn. 

Moreover, she was a facile letter writer. In her 
ordinary epistles, dashed off with great rapidity, she 
expressed her thought with artless naturalness and 
great lucidity. When her children were all married, 
when all the five birds had flown from the parental 
nest, and mated, she felt it to be one of her missions 
in life to keep them closely united in love with one 
another and with us by frequent missives from her 
warm, motherly heart. Every week she wrote them 
all. She accomplished her purpose. It was an added 
triumph of love. She constantly bore them all in her 
great throbbing heart and they, in turn, lavished on 
her their tenderest affection. They all outlived her 
and before her departure she had the joy of seeing 
them come to honor. 

So far as her strength permitted she also corre- 
sponded with her grandchildren, twelve in number. 
In her letters to them she sometimes broke out into 
song. It was only a simple and natural outpouring 
of her heart, designed for no eye but that of the one 
to whom she wrote. But the following is in a letter 
written to her oldest granddaughter, when eight years 
of age, the quoting of which the grandmother might 
excuse. 



235 



" Life is a tree, dear child, 
Love is its flower, 
Needing the sunny light. 
Needing the shower. 

" So, like a summer rose, 
Do not complain. 
Welcome the cloudless days. 
Welcome the rain." 

We have already noticed her student life at Hudson 
Female Academy. Very few at that time thought 
that girls were able to master a college course of 
study, but she made the most of such opportimities 
as she had in that school for girls and after her 
graduation manifested a marked aptitude for teaching. 
This was made clear from her unusual success in in- 
teresting her Sunday School classes in their Bible 
lessons and in the drill that she gave her own children 
in the studies that they pursued both in the public 
school and in college. In view of what she did in 
coaching them she used playfully to say that she 
richly deserved an A. B. from some reputable institu- 
tion of learning. 

She had also an insatiable passion for reading. She 
devoured all sorts of good books, historical, literary 
and scientific. What she read she mastered and re- 
tained. The knowledge thus acquired was in her 
mind clearly classified and always ready for service 
on call. She read not only English books but French 
and German with facility and pleasure. During our 
married life we read together all of Chaucer, Spenser, 

236 



Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson and most of 
modern English and American poetry. Advancing age 
did not dull her zest for reading and study. Amid 
the enchanting scenery of New Hampshire, she be- 
came more than three score and ten, but she was still 
a keen observer and an eager learner. With open 
mind and heart she was still drinking in new thought 
and newly discovered truth. She continued to grow 
in intellectual strength and spiritual power to the last 
day of her earthly life. 



XI. Her Traits of Mind and Heart 

In what I have already written the qualities of her 
mind and heart have been incidentally set forth. One 
thing is at once obvious, she had a thoroughly disci- 
plined mind. She had the power and habit of clear, 
orderly thinking. Straight as an arrow she went 
by keen analysis to the core of any subject that she 
took in hand. While, as we have seen, she read much, 
there was nothing haphazard about it. She was 
always investigating some subject. When she visited 
the libraries, as she habitually did, she knew just what 
she wanted, books that would throw light upon the 
topic to which she was then giving special attention. 
While in this orderly fashion she was accumulating 
knowledge in many fields of thought, by constantly 
writing she acquired a concise and forceful style. She 
always kept on her study-table Roget's Thesaurus of 

237 



English Words and Phrases, as a help in selecting the 
words best fitted to express her conceptions accurately. 
She also entered with avidity into all my literary work, 
wrote at my dictation the plans of my sermons, read 
the proof of what I gave to the press, and was my 
best, most unsparing critic. 

Coupled with her power of clear thinking was large 
administrative ability. Everything pertaining to the 
management of her household was wisely ordered. 
But perhaps the severest test of her administrative 
skill was in handling her servants successfully. Here 
a humanitarian and an economic question confronted 
each other. How to get the work of the house 
promptly and thoroughly done and at the same time 
to treat justly and generously the employees was the 
problem. To solve it aright she first of all took her 
servants into her confidence. She kindly told them 
what they were expected to do, showed them where 
they were to work and the utensils they were to use. 
She looked after their comfort, providing them with 
good sleeping rooms and decent beds. She however 
required of them strict fidelity, which they usually 
rendered in response to her considerate care. Not 
that the domestic machinery always ran smoothly. 
Sometimes her maids took French leave, sometimes 
she had to dismiss some of them for incompetence or 
some worse fault, but most of them had for her gen- 
uine affection. She followed with tender interest a 
number of them for years after they left her and 
rejoiced greatly when some of them rose to positions 

238 



of influence and honor. She purposed writing and 
publishing a history of a half dozen of them and made 
notes for the contemplated volume, but, I regret to 
say, left it unfinished; but it is a joy to record the 
fact that she bestowed Christian care on those that 
toiled in her kitchen, wash-room and bedchambers and 
not a few of them, having rendered faithful service, 
rose up to do her honor. 

Her administrative ability not only manifested itself 
in the management of her servants but also in many 
of the ordinary duties of every-day life. When the 
family were to go on a picnic, to have a vacation or 
to make a journey long or short, she at once had in 
hand every detail. What many esteem drudgery, she 
regarded a pleasure. Lunch baskets or trunks, as 
the case might be, were quickly and neatly packed 
and the time for starting and arrival was ascertained. 
Every detail was provided for and by the orderly 
execution of the plan the expedition was made a joy 
to all its participants. 

But in a higher sphere, — in her work on behalf of 
the women's missionary societies, — her executive tal- 
ent was manifest to all. Her conduct of meetings in 
the churches to awaken greater interest in missions, 
her suggestions, when she labored on committees 
raised to consider the more important and difficult 
problems belonging to missions in Asiatic countries, 
most favorably impressed her co-workers, so that the 
Woman's American Baptist Foreign Mission Society 
of Chicago, on whose Executive Committee she served 

239 



for two years, offered her its secretaryship and urged 
her to accept it. To her it was an enticing opening. 
In every way but one she was amply qualified for the 
work. I encouraged her to undertake it. But after 
much thought and prayer, she felt herself compelled 
to decline the tempting offer from lack of physical 
strength to discharge its weighty public duties. 

This incident in her career brought out in bold 
relief a trait of her character, that we have already 
incidentally mentioned, her extreme modesty. She 
always instinctively shrank from taking part in public 
functions. The thought of reading a report or an ad- 
dress or of speaking before any considerable audience 
quite overwhelmed her. Still, when pressed into such 
a service she always did it well. She had however a 
very humble view of her own powers. She wrote 
much, as we have seen, but used her pen sometimes 
perhaps for the mere pleasure of writing, but usually 
only to do good, seemingly with no thought beyond 
that. If I spoke to her of the merits of one of her 
essays or poems, she felt quite sure that it was an 
overestimation by a fond husband. Still, she was evi- 
dently conscious of her power to bring good things to 
pass, but instead of glorying in the power she re- 
joiced rather in the things that she did; and if she 
could have obtained the mastery over her native 
diffidence, she might have become an able public 
speaker. 

When we were once in Richmond, Virginia, we 
visited Hartshorn Memorial College. The students 

240 



assembled in the Chapel and I addressed them. At 
the close of my speech the young ladies called for 
Mrs. Anderson. To my astonishment she at once 
arose and began to speak and delivered offhand a 
clear, simple, practical address that took right hold 
of their minds and hearts.- It was just what they 
needed to hear, and when she sat down they gave her 
prolonged and hearty applause by clapping their 
hands. When we left the institution, I said to her, 
'^ You quite surprised me. I thought that you could 
not speak in public." She replied, " Some things 
came into my mind that I wanted to say, and I just 
said them." I advised her to keep on doing that, and 
she said, ^^Puff!" giving me to understand that my 
advice was to her mind quite absurd. 

Combined with her consciousness of power to do 
things worth while was her great eagerness to under- 
take needed enterprises. Having the ability to bless 
others she felt it to be both her duty and privilege 
to use it. This she did to the limit of her physical 
strength. To go beyond that, she had learned by 
sad experience, caused her days, and sometimes weeks, 
of nervous prostration. She used to say that she was 
tethered to a stake and could not go beyond the length 
of her chain. She longingly kept looking beyond and 
was eager for the race from which she was held in 
leash. Notwithstanding this sore limitation of her 
activities she seldom if ever repined at her lot. Occa- 
sionally a tear stole down her cheek as she thought 
of her enforced restraint, but that was like the passing 

241 



of a cloud on a summer day. Eager as she was to 
contribute more largely to world-wide benevolence, 
she accepted her limitations as the mysterious, yet 
wise, providence of God. She happily found much 
useful work that she could do. She joyfully did her 
important duties in directing and guiding her own 
household, and in many ways did much for the build- 
ing up of the kingdom of God in all the earth; yet 
she was always eager to do more. 

But Mary, doing her lifework under such rigorous 
limitations, found much to enhance her happiness in 
the material creation. It is no exaggeration to say 
that her love of nature was intense, and her appre- 
hension of its innermost meaning unusually clear. 
She gloried in the clouds, the manifold and exquisite 
effects of light in the heavens, on the mountains, 
the lakes and the ocean, the varied and delicate colors 
of the sky, the glow and afterglow of the sunsets, 
the trees, the shrubs, the grass, the flowers, the purling 
brooks, the dashing mountain streams, and the plu- 
mage and songs of the birds. 

While she keenly appreciated for its own sake the 
intrinsic beauty of these multifarious objects, she saw 
in and through them all the revelation of God. She 
met Him face to face in all the beauties and sublimi- 
ties of His v/orks. He unveiled Himself to her both 
in the violet and in the thunder-storm, when " he 
bowed the heavens and came down and darkness was 
under his feet." This was a manifestation of His 
power. Still it required the same omnipotence to un- 

242 



fold the tiniest blossom on the hillside or in the 
meadow, but in this quieter display of His omnipo- 
tence, God revealed also His love of beauty. So in her 
passionate love of the beautiful in the material crea- 
tion, she entered into conscious fellowship with Him. 
And since God was in Christ and through Christ all 
things were made, the grandeur and beauty of nature 
were the revelation to her of her Elder Brother. In 
her communion with nature she came into a higher 
communion with Him, through whom and unto whom 
" all things have been created," and in whom " all 
things consist.'^ The wisdom with which the objects 
of creation were fashioned were His wisdom, the sub- 
limities of nature were the manifestations of His 
almightiness, the beauties of the sun or sky or flowers 
or birds were but glimpses of His matchless beauty. 
To her the glory of the divine Artificer and ever pres- 
ent worker shone through all the objects of His 
creation. 

A soul so in love with nature and finding God in 
the manifold objects of His creation, naturally saw 
Him still more clearly in those made in His own 
image. And so marked was her sympathy with them, 
and so confident was her hope for them, that, how- 
ever marred by sin they were, she rejoiced in what 
they might become through Jesus Christ. Having 
such profound sympathy with, and hope for, men of 
all classes and conditions, she had the broadest char- 
ity for all. While she quickly apprehended the real 
characters of those around her and unerringly de- 

243 



tected all shams, upon which at times she poured forth 
her withering scorn, she was quite free from suspi- 
cion of others. Yet, she was very sensitive, and 
sensitive souls are apt to be suspicious, but she was 
sensitive without being suspicious. Her habit of mind 
was that of confidence instead of distrust. She was 
frank, sincere, open-hearted, and always inclined to 
put the best interpretation on the words and acts of 
others. So she was hopeful, optimistic, ever looking 
on the bright side of things. To her the darkest cloud 
on its opposite and unseen side was necessarily ra- 
diant with the sunlight. However momentarily dis- 
couraging the prospect might be, she felt quite sure 
that righteousness would ultimately triumph both in 
individuals and society. She herself walked in the 
light, and instead of living in apprehension of ap- 
proaching darkness, she was always expecting an even 
brighter day. 

Combined with her optimism was large benevolence. 
She had but little property. Her father left her only 
a few thousand dollars. This I invested for her. For 
many years she and I kept separate bank accounts. 
I never meddled with hers nor she with mine, while 
we always stood ready to help each other in time of 
need. Neither had enough to excite the envy of our 
neighbors, but we had sufficient to meet our necessi- 
ties and to gratify to a limited extent our tastes. We 
could buy some books and pictures, and we managed 
to travel considerably both in our own country and 
in Europe and Asia. But for mere money Mary cared 

244 



nothing. She was interested in it only for what it 
would buy. What she had she spent freely, not 
mainly for her own gratification but chiefly for the 
good of others. If any of her children needed finan- 
cial help they found mother's heart and purse open. 
If any of her neighbors were in want, she esteemed 
it a joy, to the extent of her ability, to relieve them. 
She gave with open hand to missions, at times even 
beyond her means. Her whole life was characterized 
by giving. To others she gave herself, her bodily 
strength, her powers of mind and heart, her money. 
She never gave ^^ grudgingly;" she was a genuine 
example of Paul's '' cheerful giver," whom God loves. 

The following incident shows how little she 
esteemed money for its own sake and how easily she 
was able to forego even that which money would pur- 
chase. When we built our house at Kenwood, she 
had, with no little self-denial, laid aside five or six 
hundred dollars to perfect the furnishing of it. This 
money we foolishly put into a personal bank that had 
been highly recommended to us. The bank soon 
shamefully failed and her money was lost. With no 
little trepidation I apprised her of this financial 
disaster, and while she must have been sorely disap- 
pointed, she treated her unexpected loss as though 
it were the merest trifle, not worthy of a moment's 
anxiety. She said, " It is nothing but a little money 
gone and we must not care for it." After that she 
never even once referred to it. 

But crowning all, she was a downright, clear-headed, 

245 



well-balanced Christian. She had a positive, out- 
standing Christian experience, not confined to the be- 
ginning of her spiritual life but stretching on through 
all her da^^s, ever growing in depth, richness and 
power. When converted she had an intimate, per- 
sonal transaction with her Lord. He called her by 
name and she responded by joyfully devoting herself 
imreservedly to His service. Ever after, day by day 
she communed with Him, talked with Him in prayer, 
and was never so happy 'as when endeavoring to save 
or help those for whom He died and now lives to per- 
fect their salvation. 

Her faith was immovably based upon the crucified 
and risen Lord. To her He was all and in all. Any 
act or word that seemed to her to be the slightest 
disparagement of Him, at once awoke all her powers 
in His defence. By her faith and love she had be- 
come one with Him, so that she could say with the 
great apostle, " For me to live is Christ.'' This was 
the hidden spring of all her manifold activities. The 
love of Christ constrained her. 

Since she was thus united to Christ, she implicitly 
believed His word. She never for a moment doubted 
that her children would be regenerated and saved. A 
friend asked her, ^^ Why are you so confident of this? " 
She unhesitatingly replied, ^^ Because I have asked 
the Lord for it, who said, ' Ask and ye shall receive,' 
and I know that what I ask is according to His mind, 
since He is not willing that any should perish." The 



246 



Lord honored her unshakable faith and all her chil- 
dren early in life came into the Kingdom. 

With like faith she prayed for the conversion of 
her twelve grandchildren. Before her death five of 
them, by their voluntary baptism, had declared their 
faith in the buried and risen Saviour. For the rest 
her prayers like sweet incense are preserved in 
" golden bowls " before God, and in His own time will 
be answered. No true prayer is ever lost. 

Her faith was also strikingly manifest in her con- 
quest over herself. She had, as we have already 
noted, naturally a fiery, imperious temper. When she 
first gave herself to Christ for a time she had a hard 
struggle to overcome it, but in that sharp fight she 
achieved a complete victory. To me it was an ever 
growing wonder that a woman so high strung, with 
her nervous system for some years so completely 
upset that the tones of a church organ sounded to 
her like thunder, and the notes emitted by drawing 
the bow across the strings of a violin assailed her ears 
like the shrieks of a locomotive, could move on un- 
ruffled and cheerful day by day, often grappling with 
difficulties that might have tried even the patience of 
Job. But it was a victory won through her intimate 
fellowship with her divine Lord. She had become a 
partaker of His life and patience. For over fifty-five ^ 
years we walked together as husband and wife and I 
cannot now recall the slightest friction between us 
during all that long period, or any faultfinding or 
censorious word that ever fell from her lips. We 

247 



lived in perfect accord, in cloudless love. We be- 
came one soul in two bodies. Our honeymoon never 
set, it never waned but always waxed. The same 
sweet spirit of unvarying kindness was ever mani- 
fested by her to her children, to her servants and to 
all with whom she had to do in the church and in 
society. At the same time she had her own inde- 
pendent views on all questions of the day and, being 
clear and incisive in thought, on all proper occasions 
fully stated, and vigorously defended, them. But she 
did this without narrowness or bitterness and so sel- 
dom if ever offended those holding opposite opinions. 
This luminous soul, her husband's heart and stay, 
her children's and grandchildren's pride and glory, 
honored and loved by all who knew her, left us sud- 
denly. Her fatal sickness was only for ten minutes. 
I was called to Chicago to take part in the celebra- 
tion of the Quarter Centennial of the University. 
She, glad of the opportunity of visiting once more 
her older daughter and youngest son, together with 
their households, went with me. She had spent a 
joyful week with her kith and kin. Our tickets were 
purchased for our return trip to our home in Newton 
Centre, Massachusetts, and we had planned to leave 
Chicago the next morning at 10.30 a.m. It was the 
>^eleventh of June, a beautiful Lord's Day. In the 
evening we were having our final visit with the family 
of our youngest son, when, without the slightest pre- 
intimation, the summons came for her departure from 
the earth. She did not have even the privilege of 

248 



bidding us good-by. Instead of returning the next 
day, as she had purposed to do, to her home and loved 
ones in the East, God's plan was that she should go 
that night to the " better country " and greet her 
friends there, many of whom had long waited to re- 
ceive her into the " everlasting habitations." '' Man 
proposes, God disposes." 

In a letter that she left with her will, giving me 
directions as to the disposal of some of her things, 
she wrote, — of course for no eye but mine, still to me 
it appears fitting that I should insert here the words 
of her heart, words that seem to trickle with her 
tears, but in which we catch a distinct note of tri- 
umph: '' When you read this I shall be gone, but you 
must never forget that I shall wait and watch for 
you every day imtil we meet again. I shall be where 
it is your greatest desire to be, where I see the face 
of our blessed Lord Jesus, and soon you will be with 
me, ascribing to Him who loved us and bought us 
with His blood, honor and glory, world without end. 
And so I only say, good-by till we meet again." 

These parting words are the fitting climax of this 
biographical sketch. They are the overflow of her 
great soul as she passed on and up into unending 
glory. One of her favorite passages of Scripture was: 
"The things which are seen are temporal; but the 
things which are not seen are eternal." " Clothed 
upon with our house which is from heaven," she now 
has eyes by which she sees the things that are eternal. 

Her oldest son. Prof. Frederick L. Anderson, in 

249 



his tribute to his mother, said: "^^ But, most of all, 
we shall miss her loving-kindness. There never was 
a more faithful and affectionate wife nor a more con- 
siderate and loving mother. She was always planning 
kindnesses, and their number, done in secret, was 
legion. Her Christian faith was deep and true. She 
was extraordinarily well versed in the things of the 
Spirit. Prayer was her vital breath, and simple trust 
the root of her freedom and courage. In spite of her 
crippling illness, she had a very happy life, with few 
great sorrows, and her going at the end of a perfect 
day was not the least of her mercies. And she was as 
useful as she was happy." 



Appendix 

I FOUND among her papers this prayer and the frag- 
ment of a prayer that reveal her view of the relation 
of God in Christ to nature. 

My Lord: 

It has pleased Thee to reveal Thyself to Thy chil- 
dren, and as we walk abroad with Thee, up and down 
the summer places, or cluster around the winter fire. 
Thou dost tell us, eagerly listening, of Thy works in 
the days of long ago. That Thou art great and we 
but lowly is as nothing to Thee. The little spaces 
between monarch and serf disappear before the far- 
seeing eyes of the Lord of lords and King of kings. 

250 



All are alike humble as children of the dust, all are 
alike glorious as children of the almighty Father. 
And so I may praise Thee, may, so far as in me lies, 
recognize Thy plans and understand Thy methods 
of work. 

How precious are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! 
how great is the sum of them! I walk among the 
mountains, I hear the mighty psalm of the forests, 
the eternal antiphonal of the rushing mountain tor- 
rents. It was Thy thought, my Redeemer, that made 
them answer to my soul, deep imto deep. I mark 
the long reflection, on the wavering surface of the 
lake, of the evening star, I see the aurora weaving 
mystic dances in the northern sky, the white wake 
of the comet across the heavens, and I recognize the 
touch of Thy finger, O Lover of Men. Nothing can 
affright me, nothing can make me desolate or for- 
saken. Thou, Thou, my Brother and Friend, hast 
made all these things. 

But and if my weakness bids me remember how 
small I am, like the flower of the grass that the wind 
passes over and it is gone, then I note the shading 
of the colors on the poppy blossom, I breathe the 
fragrance of the white violet. I note the hidden 
beauties of the geode. The very flower of the grass, 
to which Thou hast likened my life, is as azure as 
the sky, and I see before me the glories of Thy 
thoughts. With Thee, the tiniest atom is as worthy 
of Thy thought and Thy perfect beauty, as Arcturus 
or Aldebaran the Light-bearer. 

251 



It is not some far-away God, who has made all these 
things. It is Thyself, Fairest Lord Jesus. Every lily 
of the field reveals Thee near, is a poem that Thou 
hast written. 

The fragrance of sweet peas recalls ever to my 
heart the touch of a vanished hand. I never see the 
humble portulaca flowering across the garden beds, 
but I see before me my father, who loved it. 

A strain of music heard at night on the river, the 
song of an evening thrush, the feather of smoke from 
a far-away camp, seen across the trees, each of these 
is a link that binds me forever to those whom I have 
loved and may not see again. 

But all things, every thing I see, or hear or know, 
leads my mind to Thee, my Lord, who made all things, 
and without whom was nothing made that was made. 
For this I bless and praise Thee. Nothing stands be- 
tween me and Thee in the great visible creation. To 
no angel was delegated this beautiful work. Thou 
hast taken delight in all this wonderful unfolding of 
Thy cosmic thought. Thou hast carefully fitted to- 
gether the mosaic of the flowering gardens of the 
Sierra. Thou hast made the sea and the dry land. 
Thy thoughts stretch from eternity to eternity. Yet 
I, even I — my life is one of Thy thoughts — I am 
poor and needy but the Lord thinketh upon me and 
saves my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my 
feet from falling. 

Accept the adoration of the least of Thy children. 



252 



My Lord: 

I would thank Thee to-day not only for Thy won- 
derful creation, which stretches above, beneath and 
around me, but also for the adorable method which 
Thou didst adopt, so that hidden gifts are always 
being discovered ready to be revealed at the best time. 

Not only were the flowers and the fruits planted, 
as in Eden, for the use of Thy children, but they were 
so framed that their latent sweets and perfections 
should gradually be developed by culture, and every 
garden become a delight to the mind as well as to the 
senses of man. 

Every grain of corn, every blade of grass contains 
potentialities that ages of experiments have not ex- 
hausted. When the cactus is a desert plant its thorns 
protect it, but man may get rid of these when the 
cattle need food. There is bread in the wheat, there 
is wine in the grape, there is every dye of the sunset 
heavens in the coal. Like well wrapped gifts on the 
Christmas tree, every field and mountain is waiting to 
surprise and delight Thy searching children. 

Thou didst hide the ruby in the rock, the diamond 
in the gravel, the gold in the pocket of the hill, the 
coal and the light-giving oil in the darkness of the 
earth. The marble of Carrara, the sugar in the maple- 
tree, these too were Thy secret gifts to man. 

Men — and they too the work of Thy hand — may 
call Thee, Nature. They shrink from the use of Thy 
great name. It may be from awe, or from unbelief, 
but can Nature create? Is Nature God? Has Nature 

253 



a soul or even personality? Is the garment in which 
Thou dost reveal Thy power and love, Thyself? 
Behold, the stars are but the dust that shines at the 
touch of the finger of God! The lilies of the field, 
who painted them? 




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